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THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


\ 


TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 


BOOKS  BY  ZANE  GREY 

TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

TO  THE  LAST  MAN 

THE  MYSTERIOUS  RIDER 

THE  MAN  OF  THE  FOREST 

TALES  OF  FISHES 

THE  DESERT  OF  WHEAT 

THE  XJ.  P.  TRAIL 

WILDFIRE 

THE  BORDER  LEGION 

THE  RAINBOW  TRAIL 

THE  LONE  STAR  RANGER 

THE  LIGHT  OF   THE  WESTERN   STARS 

DESERT  GOLD 

THE  HERITAGE  OF  THE  DESERT 

RIDERS  OF  THE  PURPLE  SAGE 

THE  YOUNG  FORESTER 

THE  YOUNG  PITCHER 

THE  YOUNG  LION-HUNTER 

KEN  WARD  IN  THE  JUNGLE 

Harper  &  Brothers  ^ 
Publishers 


^^^^'^^2^_ 


TALES  OF 
LONELY  TRAILS 


by 

Zane  Grey 

Author  of 
"Tales  of  Fishes"  "Riders  of  the  Purple  Sage" 
"The     Last     of     the     Plainsmen"     Etc. 


With  Many  Illustrations 
from  Photographs 


,\A   MnAAlA 
t   XOMTE.I 

A  AAMAOir 

Harper    (Sl    Brothers 

Fuhlishers 
New    York    and    London 


TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 


Copyright,  1922 

By  Zane  Grey 

Printed  in  the  U.S.A. 

Firsi  Edition 
G-w 


r 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.  NONNEZOSHE 3 

II.  Colorado  Trails 18 

III.  Roping  Lions  in  the  Grand  Canyon 57 

IV.  ToNTO  Basin 169 

V.  Death  Valley 373 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

Zane  Grey Frontispiece 

Z.  G.  After  Two  Months  in  the  Wilds Facing  page     4 

There  Was  Something  Beyond  the  White  Peaked 

Ranges "  5 

Weird  and  Wonderful  Monuments  in  Monument 

Valley "  6 

Sunset  on  the  Desert "  6 

Cave  of  the  Cliff  Dwellers "  7 

This  Immense  Cave  Would  Hold  Trinity  Church. 
In  it  Lies  the  Ruined  Cliff  Dwelling  Called 

Betatakin "  10 

The  Wind- worn  Treacherous  Slopes  on  the  Way  to 

Nonnezoshe "  11 

First  Sight  of  the  Great  Natural  Bridge  ....  "  14 

Nonnezoshe "  15 

Pack  Horses  on  a  Sage  Slope  in  Colorado "  18 

The  Grassy  Uplands,  With  Whiteley's  Peak  in  the 

Distance "  19 

A  Spruce-shaded,  Flower-skirted  Lake      "  20 

Looking  Down  Upon  Cloud-filled  Valleys  ....  "  21 

Searching  Burned-over  Ranges  for  Game    ....  "  21 

A  Hunter's  Cabin  on  a  Frosty  Morning "  40 

The  Troublesome  Country,  Noted  for  Grizzly  Bears  "  40 

Under  the  Shadow  of  the  Flattop  Mountains.    .    .  "  41 

White  Aspen  Tree,  Showing  Marks  of  Bear  Claws  "  48 

A  Black  Bear  Treed "  49 

Crossing  the  Colorado  River  at  the  Bottom  of 

THE  Grand  Canyon "  52 

Where  Rolls  the  Colorado "  53 

Down  the  Shinumo  Trail  of  the  North  River  .    .  "  68 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

Camp  at  the  Saddle Facing  page    69 

Buckskin  Forest "  72 

Buffalo  Jones  With  Sounder  and  Ranger   ....  "  73 

Jones  About  to  Lasso  a  Mountain  Lion "  80 

Remains  of  a  Deer  Killed  by  Lions "  81 

A  Lion  Tied "  84 

Fighting   Weetahs    (Buffalo    Bulls)    on    Buffalo 

Jones's  Desert  Ranch "  85 

Treed  Lion "  100 

Treed  Lion "  101 

Treed  Lion "  104 

Hiding "  105 

A  Drink  of  Cold  Granite  Water  Under  the  Rim  "  112 

Which  is  the  Piute "  113 

Wild  Horses  Drinking  on  a  Promontory  in  the 

Grand  Canyon "  116 

Jones  and  Emett  Packing  Lion  on  Horse "  117 

Jones  Climbing  up  to  Lasso  Lion "  117 

Two  Lions  in  One  Tree "  132 

Jones,  Emett,  and  the  Navajo  With  the  Lions  .    .  "  133 

Billy  in  Camp "  152 

Lion  Licking  Snowball "  153 

Some  of  Our  Menagerie  in   Buckskin  Forest  .    .  "  160 
White  Mustang  Stallion  With  His  Bunch  of  Blacks 

in  Snake  Gulch "  161 

On  the  Way  Home "  164 

Riding  with  a  Navajo "  165 

The  Author  and  His  Men "  180 

Romer-Boy  on  His  Favorite  Steed "  181 

The  Tonto  Basin "  196 

Listening  for  the  Hounds "  197 

Zane  Grey  on  Don  Carlos "  212 

Wild  Turkey "  213 

Wild  Turkeys "  228 

The  White  Quaking  Asps "  229 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

The  Skunk,   a  Frequent  and  Rather   Dangerous 

Visitor  in  Camp Facing  page  244 

On  the  Rim "  245 

Where  Elk,  Deer,  and  Turkey  Drink "  245 

Where  Bear  Cross  the  Ridge  From  One  Canyon  to 

Another "  276 

Climbing  Over  the  Tough  Manzanita "  276 

Bear  in  Sight  Across  Canyon "  277 

Z.  G.'s  Cinnamon  Bear "  292 

R.  C.'s  Big  Brown  Bear "  292 

Another  Bear "  293 

Meat  in  Camp "  372 

Burros  Packed  for  the  Trail "  373 

The  Deadly  Cholla,  Most  Poisonous  and  Pain  In- 
flicting OF  THE  Cactus "  373 

The  Colored  Calico  Mountains "  376 

Down  the  Long  Winding  Wash  to  Death  Valley.  "  376 

Desolation  and  Decay.     Looking  Down  Over  the 

Denuded  Ridges  to  the  Stark  Valley  of  Death  "  377 

Desert  Graves "  384 

The  Ghastly  Sweep  of  Death  Valley "  384 

In  the  Center  of  the  Salt-incrusted  Floor  of  Death 

Valley,  Three  Hundred  Feet  Below  Sea  Level  "  385 


TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 


CHAPTER  I 

NONNEZOSHE 

JOHN  WETHERILL,  one  of  the  famous  Wetherill 
brothers  and  trader  at  Kayenta,  Arizona,  is  the  man 
who  discovered  Nonnezoshe,  which  is  probably  the  most 
beautiful  and  wonderful  natural  phenomenon  in  the 
world.  Wetherill  owes  the  credit  to  his  wife,  who, 
through  her  influence  with  the  Indians  finally  after  years 
succeeded  in  getting  the  secret  of  the  great  bridge. 

After  three  trips  to  Marsh  Pass  and  Kayenta  with  my 
old  guide,  Al  Doyle  of  Flagstaff,  I  finally  succeeded  in 
getting  Wetherill  to  take  me  in  to  Nonnezoshe.  This 
was  in  the  spring  of  1913  and  my  party  was  the  second 
one,  not  scientific,  to  make  the  trip.  Later  this  same 
year  Wetherill  took  in  the  Roosevelt  party  and  after  that 
the  Kolb  brothers.  It  is  a  safe  thing  to  say  that  this  trip 
is  one  of  the  most  beautiful  in  the  West.  It  is  a  hard  one 
and  not  for  everybody.  There  is  no  guide  except  Wether- 
ill, who  knows  how  to  get  there.  And  after  Doyle  and  I 
came  out  we  admitted  that  we  would  not  care  to  try  to 
return  over  our  back  trail.  We  doubted  if  we  could  find 
the  way.  This  is  the  only  place  I  have  ever  visited  which 
I  am  not  sure  I  could  find  again  alone. 

My  trip  to  Nonnezoshe  gave  me  the  opportunity  to 
see  also  Monument  Valley,  and  the  mysterious  and 
labyrinthine  Canyon  Segi  with  its  great  prehistoric  cliff- 
dwellings. 

The  desert  beyond  Kayenta  spread  out  impressively, 
bare  red  fiats  and  plains  of  sage  leading  to  the  rugged 
vividly-colored  and  wind-sculptored  sandstone  heights 

3 


4  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

typical  of  the  Painted  Desert  of  Arizona.  Laguna  Creek, 
at  that  season,  became  flooded  after  every  thunderstorm; 
and  it  was  a  treacherous  red-mired  quicksand  where  I 
convinced  myself  we  would  have  stuck  forever  had  it 
not  been  for  Wetherill's  Navajos. 

We  rode  all  day,  for  the  most  part  closed  in  by  ridges 
and  bluffs,  so  that  no  extended  view  was  possible.  It 
was  hot,  too,  and  the  sand  blew  and  the  dust  rose. 
Travel  in  northern  Arizona  is  never  easy,  and  this  grew 
harder  and  steeper.  There  was  one  long  slope  of  heavy 
sand  that  I  made  sure  would  prove  too  much  for 
Wetherill's  'pack  mules.  But  they  surmounted  it  ap- 
parently less  breathless  than  I  was.  Toward  sunset  a 
storm  gathered  ahead  of  us  to  the  north  with  a  promise 
of  cooling  and  sultry  air. 

At  length  we  turned  into  a  long  canyon  with  straight 
rugged  red  walls,  and  a  sandy  floor  with  quite  a  percepti- 
ble ascent.  It  appeared  endless.  Far  ahead  I  could  see 
the  black  storm-clouds;  and  by  and  bye  began  to  hear 
the  rumble  of  thunder.  Darkness  had  overtaken  us  by 
the  time  we  had  reached  the  head  of  this  canyon;  and 
my  first  sight  of  Monument  Valley  came  with  a  dazzling 
flash  of  lightning.  It  revealed  a  vast  valley,  a  strange 
world  of  colossal  shafts  and  buttes  of  rock,  magnificently 
sculptored,  standing  isolated  and  aloof,  dark,  weird, 
lonely.  When  the  sheet  lightning  flared  across  the  sky 
showing  the  monuments  silhouetted  black  against  that 
strange  horizon  the  effect  was  marvelously  beautiful. 
I  watched  until  the  storm  died  away. 

Dawn,  with  the  desert  sunrise,  changed  Monument 
Valley,  bereft  it  of  its  night  gloom  and  weird  shadow,  and 
showed  it  in  another  aspect  of  beauty.  It  was  hard  for 
me  to  realize  that  those  monuments  were  not  the  works 
of  man.  The  great  valley  must  once  have  been  a  plateau 
of  red  rock  from  which  the  softer  strata  had  eroded, 


Z.    G.    AFTER    TWO    MONTHS    IX    THE    WILDS 


THERE    WAS    SOMETHING    UEYOND    THE    WHITE-PEAKKI)    HANGES 


NONNEZOSHE  S 

leaving  the  gentle  league-long  slopes  marked  here  and 
there  by  upstanding  pillars  and  columns  of  singular 
shape  and  beauty.  I  rode  down  the  sweet-scented  sage- 
slopes  under  the  shadow  of  the  lofty  Mittens,  and  around 
and  across  the  valley,  and  back  again  to  the  height  of 
land.  And  when  I  had  completed  the  ride  a  story  had 
woven  itself  into  my  mind;  and  the  spot  where  I  stood 
was  to  be  the  place  where  Lin  Slone  taught  Lucy  Bostil 
to  ride  the  great  stallion  Wildfire, 

Two  days'  ride  took  us  across  country  to  the  Segi. 
With  this  wonderful  canyon  I  was  familiar,  that  is,  as 
familiar  as  several  visits  could  make  a  man  with  such  a 
bewildering  place.  In  fact  I  had  named  it  Deception 
Pass.  The  Segi  had  innumerable  branches,  all  more  or 
less  the  same  size,  and  sometimes  it  was  difficult  to  tell 
the  main  canyon  from  one  of  its  tributaries.  The  walls 
were  rugged  and  crumbling,  of  a  red  or  yellow  hue, 
upward  of  a  thousand  feet  in  height,  and  indented  by 
spruce-sided  notches. 

There  were  a  number  of  ruined  cliff-dwellings,  the  most 
accessible  of  which  was  Keet  Seel.  I  could  imagine  no 
more  picturesque  spot.  A  huge  wind- worn  cavern  with 
a  vast  slanted  stained  wall  held  upon  a  projecting  ledge 
or  shelf  the  long  line  of  cliff-dwellings.  These  silent  little 
stone  houses  with  their  vacant  black  eye-like  windows 
had  strange  power  to  make  me  ponder,  and  then  dream. 

Next  day,  upon  resuming  our  journey,  it  pleased  me 
to  try  to  find  the  trail  to  Betatakin,  the  most  noted, 
and  surely  the  most  wonderful  and  beautiful  ruin  in  all 
the  West.  In  many  places  there  was  no  trail  at  all,  and 
I  encountered  difficulties,  but  in  the  end  without  much 
loss  of  time  I  entered  the  narrow  rugged  entrance  of  the 
canyon  I  had  named  Surprise  Valley.  Sight  of  the  great 
dark  cave  thrilled  me  as  I  thought  it  might  have  thrilled 
Bess  and  Venters,  who  had  lived  for  me  their  imagined 
2 


6         TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

lives  of  loneliness  here  in  this  wild  spot.  With  the  sight 
of  those  lofty  walls  and  the  scent  of  the  dry  sweet  sage 
there  rushed  over  me  a  strange  feeling  that  "Riders  of 
the  Purple  Sage"  was  true.  My  dream  people  of  ro- 
mance had  really  lived  there  once  upon  a  time.  I 
climbed  high  upon  the  huge  stones,  and  along  the  smooth 
red  walls  where  Fay  Larkin  once  had  glided  with  swift 
sure  steps,  and  I  entered  the  musty  cliff-dwellings,  and 
called  out  to  hear  the  weird  and  sonorous  echoes,  and  I 
wandered  through  the  thickets  and  upon  the  grassy 
spruce-shaded  benches,  never  for  a  moment  free  of  the 
story  I  had  conceived  there.  Something  of  awe  and 
sadness  abided  with  me.  I  could  not  enter  into  the  merry 
pranks  and  investigations  of  my  party.  Surprise  Valley 
seemed  a  part  of  my  past,  my  dreams,  my  very  self. 
I  left  it,  haunted  by  its  loneliness  and  silence  and  beauty, 
by  the  story  it  had  given  me. 

That  night  we  camped  at  Bubbling  Spring,  which  once 
had  been  a  geyser  of  considerable  power.  Wetherill  told 
a  story  of  an  old  Navajo  who  had  lived  there.  For  a  long 
time,  according  to  the  Indian  tale,  the  old  chief  resided 
there  without  complaining  of  this  geyser  that  was  wont 
to  inundate  his  fields.  But  one  season  the  unreliable 
waterspout  made  great  and  persistent  endeavor  to  drown 
him  and  his  people  and  horses.  Whereupon  the  old 
Navajo  took  his  gun  and  shot  repeatedly  at  the  geyser, 
and  thundered  aloud  his  anger  to  the  Great  Spirit.  The 
geyser  ebbed  away,  and  from  that  day  never  burst  forth 
again. 

Somewhere  under  the  great  bulge  of  Navajo  Mountain 
I  calculated  that  we  were  coming  to  the  edge  of  the 
plateau.  The  white  bobbing  pack-horses  disappeared 
and  then  our  extra  mustangs.  It  is  no  unusual  thing  for 
a  man  to  use  three  mounts  on  this  trip.  Then  two  of  our 
Indians  disappeared.     But  Wetherill  waited  for  us  and 


WEIRD    AND    WONDERFUL    MONUMENTS    IN    MONUMENT    VALLEY 


SUNSET    ON   THE   DESERT 


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NONNEZOSHE  7 

so  did  Nas  ta  Bega,  the  Piute  who  first  took  Wetherill 
down  into  Nonnezoshe  Boco.  As  I  came  up  I  thought 
we  had  indeed  reached  the  end  of  the  world. 

"It's  down  in  there,"  said  Wetherill,  with  a  laugh. 

Nas  ta  Bega  made  a  slow  sweeping  gesture.  There 
is  always  something  so  significant  and  impressive  about 
an  Indian  when  he  points  anywhere.  It  is  as  if  he  says, 
"There,  way  beyond,  over  the  ranges,  is  a  place  I  know, 
and  it  is  far."  The  fact  was  that  I  looked  at  the  Piute's 
dark,  inscrutable  face  before  I  looked  out  into  the  void. 

My  gaze  then  seemed  impelled  and  held  by  things 
afar,  a  vast  yellow  and  purple  corrugated  world  of  dis- 
tance, apparently  now  on  a  level  with  my  eyes.  I  was 
drawn  by  the  beauty  and  grandeur  of  that  scene;  and 
then  I  was  transfixed,  almost  by  fear,  by  the  realization 
that  I  dared  to  venture  down  into  this  wild  and  upflung 
fastness.  I  kept  looking  afar,  sweeping  the  three- 
quarter  circle  of  horizon  till  my  judgment  of  distance 
was  confounded  and  my  sense  of  proportion  dwarfed 
one  moment  and  magnified  the  next. 

Wetherill  was  pointing  and  explaining,  but  I  had  not 
grasped  all  he  said. 

"You  can  see  two  hundred  miles  into  Utah,"  he  went 
on.  "That  bright  rough  surface,  like  a  washboard,  is 
wind-worn  rock.  Those  little  lines  of  cleavage  are  can- 
yons. There  are  a  thousand  canyons  down  there,  and 
only  a  few  have  we  been  in.  That  long  purple  ragged 
line  is  the  Grand  Canyon  of  the  Colorado.  And  there, 
that  blue  fork  in  the  red,  that's  where  the  San  Juan 
comes  in.     And  there's  Escalante  Canyon." 

I  had  to  adopt  the  Indian's  method  of  studying  un- 
limited spaces  in  the  desert — to  look  with  slow  con- 
tracted eyes  from  near  to  far. 

The  pack-train  and  the  drivers  had  begun  to  zigzag 
down  a  long  slope,  bare  of  rock,  with  scant  strips  of 


8  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

green,  and  here  and  there  a  cedar.  Llalf  a  mile  down,' 
the  slope  merged  in  what  seemed  a  green  level.  But  I 
knew  it  was  not  level.  This  level  was  a  rolling  plain, 
growing  darker  green,  with  lines  of  ravines  and  thin, 
undefined  spaces  that  might  be  mirage.  Miles  and  miles 
it  swept  and  rolled  and  heaved,  to  lose  its  waves  in 
apparent  darker  level.  Round  red  rocks  stood  isolated. 
They  resembled  huge  grazing  cattle.  But  as  I  gazed 
these  rocks  were  strangely  magnified.  They  grew  and 
grew  into  mounds,  castles,  domes,  crags,  great  red  wind- 
carved  buttes.  One  by  one  they  drew  my  gaze  to  the 
wall  of  upflung  rock.  I  seemed  to  see  a  thousand  domes 
of  a  thousand  shapes  and  colors,  and  among  them  a 
thousand  blue  clefts,  each  of  which  was  a  canyon. 

Beyond  this  wide  area  of  curved  lines  rose  another 
wall,  dwarfing  the  lower;  dark  red,  horizon-long,  magnif- 
icent in  frowning  boldness,  and  because  of  its  limitless 
deceiving  surfaces  incomprehensible  to  the  gaze  of  man. 
Away  to  the  eastward  began  a  winding  ragged  blue  line, 
looping  back  upon  itself,  and  then  winding  away  again, 
growing  wider  and  bluer.  This  line  was  San  Juan 
Canyon.  I  followed  that  blue  line  all  its  length,  a  hun- 
dred miles,  down  toward  the  west  where  it  joined  a  dark 
purple  shadowy  cleft.  And  this  was  the  Grand  Canyon 
of  the  Colorado.  My  eye  swept  along  with  that  wind- 
ing mark,  farther  and  farther  to  the  west,  until  the  cleft, 
growing  larger  and  closer,  revealed  itself  as  a  wild  and 
winding  canyon.  Still  farther  westward  it  split  a  vast 
plateau  of  red  peaks  and  yellow  mesas.  Here  the  canyon 
was  full  of  purple  smoke.  It  turned,  it  closed,  it  gaped, 
it  lost  itself  and  showed  again  in  that  chaos  of  a  million 
cliffs.  And  then  it  faded,  a  mere  purple  line,  into  de- 
ceiving distance. 

I  imagined  there  was  no  scene  in  all  the  world  to  equal 
this.     The  tranquillity  of  lesser  spaces  was  here  not 


NONNEZOSHE  9 

manifest.  This  happened  to  be  a  place  where  so  much 
of  the  desert  could  be  seen  and  the  effect  was  stupen- 
dous. Sound,  movement,  life  seemed  to  have  no  fitness 
here.  Ruin  was  there  and  desolation  and  decay.  The 
meaning  of  the  ages  was  flung  at  me.  A  man  became 
nothing.  But  when  I  gazed  across  that  sublime  and 
majestic  wilderness,  in  which  the  Grand  Canyon  was 
only  a  dim  line,  I  strangely  lost  my  terror  and  some- 
thing came  to  me  across  the  shining  spaces. 

Then  Nas  ta  Bega  and  Wetherill  began  the  descent 
of  the  slope,  and  the  rest  of  us  followed.  No  sign  of 
a  trail  showed  where  the  base  of  the  slope  rolled  out 
to  meet  the  green  plain.  There  was  a  level  bench  a  mile 
wide,  then  a  ravine,  and  then  an  ascent,  and  after  that, 
rounded  ridge  and  ravine,  one  after  the  other,  like  huge 
swells  of  a  monstrous  sea.  Indian  paint  brush  vied  in  its 
scarlet  hue  with  the  deep  magenta  of  cactus.  There 
was  no  sage.  Soap  weed  and  meager  grass  and  a  bunch 
of  cactus  here  and  there  lent  the  green  to  that  barren, 
and  it  was  green  only  at  a  distance. 

Nas  ta  Bega  kept  on  at  a  steady  gait.  The  sun 
climbed.  The  wind  rose  and  whipped  dust  from  under 
the  mustangs.  There  is  seldom  much  talk  on  a  ride  of 
this  nature.  It  is  hard  work  and  everybody  for  himself. 
Besides,  it  is  enough  just  to  see;  and  that  country  is 
conducive  to  silence.  I  looked  back  often,  and  the  far- 
ther out  on  the  plain  we  rode  the  higher  loomed  the 
plateau  we  had  descended ;  and  as  I  faced  ahead  again,  the 
lower  sank  the' red-domed  and  castled  horizon  to  the  fore. 

It  wa^  a  wild  place  we  were  approaching.  I  saw 
piiion  patches  under  the  circled  walls.  I  ceased  to  feel 
the  dry  wind  in  my  face.  We  were  already  in  the  lee 
of  a  wall.  I  saw  the  rock  squirrels  scampering  to  their 
holes.  Then  the  Indians  disappeared  between  two 
rounded  corners  of  cliff. 


10  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

I  rode  round  the  comer  into  a  widening  space  thick 
with  cedars.  It  ended  in  a  bare  slope  of  smooth  rock. 
Here  we  dismounted  to  begin  the  ascent.  It  was  smooth 
and  hard,  though  not  sHppery.  There  was  not  a  crack. 
I  did  not  see  a  broken  piece  of  stone.  Nas  ta  Bega  and 
Wetherill  cHmbed  straight  up  for  a  while  and  then  wound 
round  a  swell,  to  turn  this  way  and  that,  always  going 
up.  I  began  to  see  similar  mounds  of  rock  all  around  me, 
of  every  shape  that  could  be  called  a  curve.  There  were 
yellow  domes  far  above  and  small  red  domes  far  below. 
Ridges  ran  from  one  hill  of  rock  to  another.  There 
were  no  abrupt  breaks,  but  holes  and  pits  and  caves  were 
everywhere,  and  occasionally  deep  down,  an  amphi- 
theater green  with  cedar  and  pinon.  We  found  no  ves- 
tige of  trail  on  those  bare  slopes. 

Our  guides  led  to  the  top  of  the  wall,  only  to  disclose 
to  us  another  wall  beyond,  with  a  ridged,  bare,  and  scal- 
loped depression  between.  Here  footing  began  to  be 
precarious  for  both  man  and  beast.  Our  mustangs  were 
not  shod  and  it  was  wonderful  to  see  their  slow,  short, 
careful  steps.  They  knew  a  great  deal  better  than  we 
what  the  danger  was.  It  has  been  such  experiences  as 
this  that  have  made  me  see  in  horses  something  besides 
beasts  of  burden.  In  the  ascent  of  the  second  slope  it 
was  necessary  to  zigzag  up,  slowly  and  carefully,  taking 
advantage  of  every  bulge  and  depression. 

Then  before  us  twisted  and  dropped  and  curved  the 
most  dangerous  slopes  I  had  ever  seen.  We  had  reached 
the  height  of  the  divide  and  many  of  the  drops  on  this 
side  were  perpendicular  and  too  steep  for  us  to  see  the 
bottom. 

At  one  bad  place  Wetherill  and  Nas  ta  Bega,  with  Joe 
Lee,  a  Mormon  cowboy  with  us,  were  helping  one  of  the 
pack-horses  named  Chub.  On  the  steepest  part  of  this 
slope  Chub  fell  and  began  to  slide.     His  momentum 


THIS   IMMENSE   CAVE    WOULD   HOLD    TRINITY    CHURCH 
IN   IT   LIES   THE    RUINED   CLIFF   DWELLING   CALLED    BETATAKIN 


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NONNEZOSHE  ii 

jerked  the  rope  from  the  hands  of  Wetherill  and  the 
Indian,  But  Joe  Lee  held  on.  Joe  was  a  giant  and  being 
a  Mormon  he  could  not  let  go  of  anything  he  had.  He 
began  to  slide  with  the  horse,  holding  back  with  all  his 
might. 

It  seemed  that  both  man  and  beast  must  slide  down  to 
where  the  slope  ended  in  a  yawning  precipice.  Chub 
was  snorting  or  screaming  in  terror.  Our  mustangs  were 
frightened  and  rearing.  It  was  not  a  place  to  have 
trouble  with  horses. 

I  had  a  moment  of  horrified  fascination,  in  which  Chub 
turned  clear  over.  Then  he  slid  into  a  little  depression 
that,  with  Joe's  hold  on  the  lasso,  momentarily  checked 
his  descent.  Quick  as  thought  Joe  ran  sidewise  and  down 
to  the  bulge  of  rock,  and  yelled  for  help.  I  got  to  him 
a  little  ahead  of  Wetherill  and  Nas  ta  Bega ;  and  together 
we  pulled  Chub  up  out  of  danger.  At  first  we  thought 
he  had  been  choked  to  death.  But  he  came  to,  and  got 
up,  a  bloody,  skinned  horse,  but  alive  and  safe.  I  have 
never  seen  a  more  magnificent  effort  than  Joe  Lee's. 
Those  fellows  are  built  that  way.  Wetherill  has  lost 
horses  on  those  treacherous  slopes,  and  that  risk  is  the 
only  thing  about  the  trip  which  is  not  splendid. 

We  got  over  that  bad  place  without  further  incident, 
and  presently  came  to  a  long  swell  of  naked  stone  that 
led  down  to  a  narrow  green  split.  This  one  had  straight 
walls  and  wound  away  out  of  sight.  It  was  the  head  of 
a  canyon. 

"Nonnezoshe  Boco,"  said  the  Indian. 

This  then  was  the  Canyon  of  the  Rainbow  Bridge. 
When  we  got  down  into  it  we  were  a  happy  crowd.  The 
mode  of  travel  here  was  a  selection  of  the  best  levels,  the 
best  places  to  cross  the  brook,  the  best  places  to  climb, 
and  it  was  a  process  of  continual  repetition.  There  was 
no  trail  ahead  of  us,  but  we  certainly  left  one  behind. 


12  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

And  as  Wetherill  picked  out  the  course  and  the  mustangs 
followed  him  I  had  all  freedom  to  see  and  feel  the  beauty, 
color,  wildness  and  changing  character  of  Nonnezoshe 
Boco. 

My  experiences  in  the  desert  did  not  count  much  in 
the  trip  down  this  strange,  beautiful  lost  canyon.  All 
canyons  are  not  alike.  This  one  did  not  widen,  though 
the  walls  grew  higher.  They  began  to  lean  and  bulge, 
and  the  narrow  strip  of  sky  above  resembled  a  flowing 
blue  river.  Huge  caverns  had  been  hollowed  out  by 
water  or  wind.  And  when  the  brook  ran  close  under  one 
of  these  overhanging  places  the  running  water  made  a 
singular  indescribable  sound.  A  crack  from  a  hoof  on 
a  stone  rang  like  a  hollow  bell  and  echoed  from  wall  to 
wall.  And  the  croak  of  a  frog — the  only  living  creature 
I  noted  in  the  canyon — was  a  weird  and  melancholy 
thing. 

"We're  sure  gettin'  deep  down,"  said  Joe  Lee. 

"How  do  you  know?"  I  asked. 

"Here  are  the  pink  and  yellow  sego  lilies.  Only  the 
white  ones  are  found  above." 

I  dismounted  to  gather  some  of  these  lilies.  They 
were  larger  than  the  white  ones  of  higher  altitudes,  of 
a  most  exquisite  beauty  and  fragility,  and  of  such  rare 
pink  and  yellow  hues  as  I  had  never  seen. 

"They  bloom  only  where  it's  always  summer,"  ex- 
plained Joe. 

That  expressed  their  nature.  They  were  the  orchids 
of  the  summer  canyons.  They  stood  up  everywhere 
star-like  out  of  the  green.  It  was  impossible  to  prevent 
the  mustangs  treading  them  under  foot.  And  as  the 
canyon  deepened,  and  many  little  springs  added  their 
tiny  volume  to  the  brook,  every  grassy  bench  was  dotted 
with  lilies,  like  a  green  sky  star-spangled.  And  this 
increasing  luxuriance  manifested  itself  in  the  banks  of 


NONNEZOSHE  13 

purple  moss  and  clumps  of  lavender  daisies  and  great 
mounds  of  yellow  violets.  The  brook  was  lined  by 
blossoming  buck-brush;  the  rocky  comers  showed  the 
crimson  and  magenta  of  cactus;  and  there  were  ledges 
of  green  with  shining  moss  that  sparkled  with  little  white 
flowers.     The  hum  of  bees  filled  the  fragrant,  dreamy  air. 

But  by  and  bye,  this  green  and  colorful  and  verdant 
beauty,  the  almost  level  floor  of  the  canyon,  the  banks  of 
soft  earth,  the  thickets  and  clumps  of  cottonwood,  the 
shelving  caverns  and  bulging  walls — these  features  were 
gradually  lost,  and  Nonnezoshe  began  to  deepen  in  bare 
red  and  white  stone  steps.  The  walls  sheered  away 
from  one  another,  breaking  into  sections  and  ledges,  and 
rising  higher  and  higher,  and  there  began  to  be  mani- 
fested a  dark  and  solemn  concordance  with  the  nature 
that  had  created  this  old  rent  in  the  earth. 

There  was  a  stretch  of  miles  where  steep  steps  in  hard 
red  rock  alternated  with  long  levels  of  round  boulders. 
Here,  one  by  one,  the  mustangs  went  lame  and  we  had 
to  walk.  And  we  slipped  and  stumbled  along  over  these 
loose,  treacherous  stones.  The  hours  passed;  the  toil 
increased;  the  progress  diminished;  one  of  the  mus- 
tangs failed  and  was  left.  And  all  the  while  the  dimen- 
sions of  Nonnezoshe  Boco  magnified  and  its  character 
changed.  It  became  a  thousand-foot  walled  canyon, 
leaning,  broken,  threatening,  with  great  yellow  slides 
blocking  passage,  with  huge  sections  split  off  from  the 
main  wall,  with  immense  dark  and  gloomy  caverns. 
Strangely  it  had  no  intersecting  canyons.  It  jealously 
guarded  its  secret.  Its  unusual  formations  of  cavern  and 
pillar  and  half-arch  led  me  to  expect  any  monstrous 
stone-shape  left  by  avalanche  or  cataclysm. 

Down  and  down  we  toiled.  And  now  the  stream- 
bed  was  bare  of  boulders  and  the  banks  of  earth.  The 
floods  that  had  rolled  down  that  canyon  had  here  borne 


14  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

away  every  loose  thing.  All  the  floor,  in  places,  was 
bare  red  and  white  stone,  polished,  glistening,  slippery, 
affording  treacherous  foothold.  And  the  time  came 
when  Wetherill  abandoned  the  stream-bed  to  take  to 
the  rock-strewn  and  cactus-covered  ledges  above. 

The  canyon  widened  ahead  into  a  great  ragged  iron- 
lined  amphitheater,  and  then  apparently  turned  abruptly 
at  right  angles.     Sunset  rimmed  the  walls. 

I  had  been  tired  for  a  long  time  and  now  I  began  to 
limp  and  lag.  I  wondered  what  on  earth  would  make 
Wetherill  and  the  Indians  tired.  It  was  with  great 
pleasure  that  I.  observed  the  giant  Joe  Lee  plodding 
slowly  along.  And  when  I  glanced  behind  at  my  strag- 
gling party  it  was  with  both  admiration  for  their  game- 
ness  and  glee  for  their  disheveled  and  weary  appearance. 
Finally  I  got  so  that  all  I  could  do  was  to  drag  myself 
onward  with  eyes  down  on  the  rough  ground.  In  this 
way  I  kept  on  until  I  heard  Wetherill  call  me.  He  had 
stopped — was  waiting  for  me.  The  dark  and  silent 
Indian  stood  beside  him,  looking  down  the  canyon. 

I  saw  past  the  vast  jutting  wall  that  had  obstructed 
my  view.  A  mile  beyond,  all  was  bright  with  the  colors 
of  sunset,  and  spanning  the  canyon  in  the  graceful  shape 
and  beautiful  hues  of  the  rainbow  was  a  magnificent 
natural  bridge. 

"Nonnezoshe,"  said  WhetherHl,  simply. 

This  rainbow  bridge  was  the  one  great  natural  phe- 
nomenon, the  one  grand  spectacle  which  I  had  ever  seen 
that  did  not  at  first  give  vague  disappointment,  a  con- 
founding of  reality,  a  disenchantment  of  contrast  with 
what  the  mind  had  conceived. 

But  this  thing  was  glorious.  It  absolutely  silenced 
me.  My  body  and  brain,  weary  and  dull  from  the  toil  of 
travel,  received  a  singular  and  revivifying  freshness.  I 
had  a  strange,  mystic  perception  that  this  rosy-hued, 


FIRST    SIGHT    OF    THE    GREAT    NATURAL    BRIDGE 


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NONNEZOSHE  15 

tremendous  arch  of  stone  was  a  goal  I  had  failed  to 
reach  in  some  former  life,  but  had  now  found.  Here 
was  a  rainbow  magnified  even  beyond  dreams,  a  thing 
not  transparent  and  ethereal,  but  solidified,  a  work  of 
ages,  sweeping  up  majestically  from  the  red  walls,  its 
iris-hued  arch  against  the  blue  sky. 

Then  we  plodded  on  again.  Wetherill  worked  around 
to  circle  the  huge  amphitheater.  The  way  was  a  steep 
slant,  rough  and  loose  and  dragging.  The  rocks  were 
as  hard  and  jagged  as  lava,  and  cactus  hindered  progress. 
Soon  the  rosy  and  golden  lights  had  faded.  All  the 
walls  turned  pale  and  steely  and  the  bridge  loomed  dark. 

We  were  to  camp  all  night  under  the  bridge.  Just 
before  we  reached  it  Nas  ta  Bega  halted  with  one  of 
his  singular  motions.  He  was  saying  his  prayer  to  this 
great  stone  god.  Then  he  began  to  climb  straight  up 
the  steep  slope.  Wetherill  told  me  the  Indian  would 
not  pass  under  the  arch. 

When  we  got  to  the  bridge  and  unsaddled  and  un- 
packed the  lame  mustangs  twilight  had  fallen.  The 
horses  were  turned  loose  to  fare  for  what  scant  grass 
grew  on  bench  and  slope.  Firewood  was  even  harder 
to  find  than  grass.  When  our  simple  meal  had  been 
eaten  there  was  gloom  gathering  in  the  canyon  and  stars 
had  begun  to  blink  in  the  pale  strip  of  blue  above  the 
lofty  walls.  The  place  was  oppressive  and  we  were 
mostly  silent. 

Presently  I  moved  away  into  the  strange  dark  shadow 
cast  by  the  bridge.  It  was  a  weird  black  belt,  where 
I  imagined  I  was  invisible,  but  out  of  which  I  could  see. 
There  was  a  slab  of  rock  upon  which  I  composed  myself, 
to  watch,  to  feel. 

A  stiffening  of  my  neck  made  me  aware  that  I  had 
been  continually  looking  up  at  the  looming  arch.  I 
found  that  it  never  seemed  the  same  any  two  moments. 


i6  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

Near  at  hand  it  was  too  vast  a  thing  for  immediate 
comprehension.  I  wanted  to  ponder  on  what  had  formed 
it — to  reflect  upon  its  meaning  as  to  age  and  force  of 
nature.  Yet  it  seemed  that  all  I  could  do  was  to  see. 
White  stars  hung  along  the  dark  curved  line.  The  rim 
of  the  arch  appeared  to  shine.  The  moon  was  up  there 
somewhere.  The  far  side  of  the  canyon  was  now  a  blank 
black  wall.  Over  its  towering  rim  showed  a  pale  glow. 
It  brightened.  The  shades  in  the  canyon  lightened,  then 
a  white  disk  of  moon  peeped  over  the  dark  line.  The 
bridge  turned  to  silver. 

It  was  then  that  I  became  aware  of  the  presence  of 
Nas  ta  Bega.  Dark,  silent,  statuesque,  with  inscrutable 
face  uplifted,  with  all  that  was  spiritual  of  the  Indian 
suggested  by  a  somber  and  tranquil  knowledge  of  his 
place  there,  he  represented  to  me  that  which  a  solitary 
figure  of  human  life  represents  in  a  great  painting. 
Nonnezoshe  needed  life,  wild  life,  life  of  its  millions  of 
years — and  here  stood  the  dark  and  silent  Indian. 

Long  afterward  I  walked  there  alone,  to  and  fro,  under 
the  bridge.  The  moon  had  long  since  crossed  the  streak 
of  star-fired  blue  above,  and  the  canyon  w^as  black  in 
shadow.  At  times  a  current  of  wind,  with  all  the  strange- 
ness of  that  strange  country  in  its  moan,  rushed  through 
the  great  stone  arch.  At  other  times  there  was  silence 
such  as  I  imagined  might  have  dwelt  deep  in  the  center 
of  .the  earth.  And  again  an  owl  hooted,  and  the  sound 
was  nameless.  It  had  a  mocking  echo.  An  echo  of 
night,  silence,  gloom,  melancholy,  death,  age,  eternity! 

The  Indian  lay  asleep  with  his  dark  face  upturned, 
and  the  other  sleepers  lay  calm  and  white  in  the  star- 
light. I  seemed  to  see  in  them  the  meaning  of  life  and 
the  past — the  illimitable  train  of  faces  that  had  shone 
under  the  stars.  There  was  something  nameless  in  that 
canyon,  and  whether  or  not  it  was  what  the  Indian  em- 


NONNEZOSHE  17 

bodied  in  the  great  Nonnezoshe,  or  the  life  of  the  present, 
or  the  death  of  the  ages,  or  the  nature  so  magnificently 
manifested  in  those  silent,  dreaming,  waiting  walls — the 
truth  was  that  there  was  a  spirit. 

I  did  sleep  a  few  hours  under  Nonnezoshe,  and  when 
I  awoke  the  tip  of  the  arch  was  losing  its  cold  darkness 
and  beginning  to  shine.  The  sun  had  just  risen  high 
enough  over  some  low  break  in  the  wall  to  reach  the 
bridge.  I  watched.  Slowly,  in  wondrous  transforma- 
tion, the  gold  and  blue  and  rose  and  pink  and  purple 
blended  their  hues,  softly,  mistily,  cloudily,  until  once 
more  the  arch  was  a  rainbow. 

I  realized  that  long  before  life  had  evolved  upon  the 
earth  this  bridge  had  spread  its  grand  arch  from  wall  to 
wall,  black  and  mystic  at  night,  transparent  and  rosy 
in  the  sunrise,  at  sunset  a  flaming  curve  limned  against 
the  heavens.  When  the  race  of  man  had  passed  it  would, 
perhaps,  stand  there  still.  It  was  not  for  many  eyes  to 
see.  The  tourist,  the  leisurely  traveler,  the  comfort- 
loving  motorist  would  never  behold  it.  Only  by  toil, 
sweat,  endurance  and  pain  could  any  man  ever  look  at 
Nonnezoshe.  It  seemed  well  to  realize  that  the  great 
things  of  life  had  to  be  earned.  Nonnezoshe  would 
always  be  alone,  grand,  silent,  beautiful,  unintelligible; 
and  as  such  I  bade  it  a  mute,  reverent  farewell. 


CHAPTER  II 

COLORADO  TRAILS 

RIDING  and  tramping  trails  would  lose  half  their 
charm  if  the  motive  were  only  to  hunt  and  to  fish. 
It  seems  fair  to  warn  the  reader  who  longs  to  embark 
upon  a  bloody  game  hunt  or  a  chronicle  of  fishing  records 
that  this  is  not  that  kind  of  story.  But  it  will  be  one  for 
those  who  love  horses  and  dogs,  the  long  winding  dim 
trails,  the  wild  flowers  and  the  dark  still  woods,  the 
fragrance  of  spruce  and  the  smell  of  camp-fire  smoke. 
And  as  well  for  those  who  love  to  angle  in  brown  lakes 
or  rushing  brooks  or  chase  after  the  baying  hounds  or 
stalk  the  stag  on  his  lonely  heights. 

We  left  Denver  on  August  twenty-second  over  the 
Moffet  road  and  had  a  long  wonderful  ride  through  the 
mountains.  The  Rockies  have  a  sweep,  a  limitless 
sweep,  majestic  and  grand.  For  many  miles  we  crossed 
no  streams,  and  climbed  and  wound  up  barren  slopes. 
Once  across  the  divide,  however,  we  descended  into  a 
country  of  black  forests  and  green  valleys.  Yampa,  a 
little  hamlet  with  a  past  prosperity,  lay  in  the  wide  valley 
of  the  Bear  River.  It  was  picturesque  but  idle,  and  a 
better  name  for  it  would  have  been  Sleepy  Hollow.  The 
main  and  only  street  was  very  wide  and  dusty,  bordered 
by  old  board  walks  and  vacant  stores.  It  seemed  a 
deserted  street  of  a  deserted  village.  Teague,  the  guide, 
lived  there.     He  assured  me  it  was  not  quite  as  lively 

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COLORADO  TRAILS  19 

a  place  as  in  the  early  days  when  it  was  a  stage  center 
for  an  old  and  rich  mining  section.  We  stayed  there  at 
the  one  hotel  for  a  whole  day,  most  of  which  I  spent 
sitting  on  the  board  walk.  Whenever  I  chanced  to  look 
down  the  wide  street  it  seemed  always  the  same — 
deserted.  But  Yampa  had  the  charm  of  being  old  and 
forgotten,  and  for  that  reason  I  would  like  to  live  there 
a  while. 

On  August  twenty-third  we  started  in  two  buckboards 
for  the  foothills,  some  fifteen  miles  westward,  where 
Teague's  men  were  to  meet  us  with  saddle  and  pack 
horses.  The  ride  was  not  interesting  until  the  Flattop 
Mountains  began  to  loom,  and  we  saw  the  dark  green 
slopes  of  spruce,  rising  to  bare  gray  cliffs  and  domes, 
spotted  with  white  banks  of  snow.  I  felt  the  first  cool 
breath  of  mountain  air,  exhilarating  and  sweet.  From 
that  moment  I  began  to  live. 

We  had  left  at  six-thirty^  Teague,  my  guide,  had  been 
so  rushed  with  his  manifold  tasks  that  I  had  scarcely  seen 
him,  let  alone  gotten  acquainted  with  him.  And  on  this 
ride  he  was  far  behind  with  our  load  of  baggage.  We 
arrived  at  the  edge  of  the  foothills  about  noon.  It  ap- 
peared to  be  the  gateway  of  a  valley,  with  aspen  groves 
and  ragged  jack-pines  on  the  slopes,  and  a  stream  running 
down.  Our  driver  called  it  the  Stillwater.  That  struck 
me  as  strange,  for  the  stream  was  in  a  great  hurry. 
R.  C.  spied  trout  in  it,  and  schools  of  darkish,  mullet- 
like fish  which  we  were  informed  were  grayling.  We 
wished  for  our  tackle  then  and  for  time  to  fish. 

Teague's  man,  a  young  fellow  called  Virgil,  met  us 
here.  He  did  not  resemble  the  ancient  VirgU  in  the 
least,  but  he  did  look  as  if  he  had  walked  right  out  of 
one  of  my  romances  of  wild  riders.  So  I  took  a  liking 
to  him  at  once. 

But  the  bunch  of  horses  he  had  corralled  there  did  not 


20  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

excite  any  delight  in  me.  Horses,  of  course,  were  the 
most  important  part  of  our  outfit.  And  that  moment 
of  first  seeing  the  horses  that  were  to  carry  us  on  such 
long  rides  was  an  anxious  and  thrilling  one.  I  have  felt 
it  many  times,  and  it  never  grows  any  weaker  from 
experience.  Many  a  scrubby  lot  of  horses  had  turned 
out  well  upon  acquaintance,  and  some  I  had  found  hard 
to  part  with  at  the  end  of  trips.  Up  to  that  time,  how- 
ever, I  had  not  seen  a  bear  hunter's  horses;  and  I  was 
much  concerned  by  the  fact  that  these  were  a  sorry 
looking  outfit,  dusty,  ragged,  maneless,  cut  and  bruised 
and  crippled.  Still,  I  reflected,  they  were  bunched  up 
so  closely  that  I  could  not  tell  much  about  them,  and 
I  decided  to  wait  for  Teague  before  I  chose  a  horse  for 
any  one. 

In  an  hour  Teague  trotted  up  to  our  resting  place. 
Beside  his  own  mount  he  had  two  white  saddle  horses, 
and  nine  pack-animals,  heavily  laden.  Teague  was  a 
sturdy  rugged  man  with  bronzed  face  and  keen  gray- 
blue  eyes,  very  genial  and  humorous.  Straightway  I  got 
the  impression  that  he  liked  work. 

"Let's  organize,"  he  said,  briskly.  "Have  you  picked 
the  horses  you're  goin'  to  ride?" 

Teague  led  from  the  midst  of  that  dusty  kicking  bunch 
a  rangy  powerful  horse,  with  four  white  feet,  a  white 
face  and  a  noble  head.  He  had  escaped  my  eye.  I  felt 
thrillingly  that  here  at  least  was  one  horse. 

The  rest  of  the  horses  were  permanently  crippled  or 
temporarily  lame,  and  I  had  no  choice,  except  to  take 
the  one  it  would  be  kindest  to  ride. 

"He  ain't  much  like  your  Silvermane  or  Black  Star," 
said  Teague,  laughing. 

"What  do  you  know  about  them?"  I  asked,  very 
much  pleased  at  this  from  him. 

"Well,  I  know  all  about  them,"  he  replied.     "I'll  have 


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LOOKING    DOWN    UPON   CLOUD-FILLED    VALLEYS 


SEARCHING    BURNED-OVER    RANGES    F(JR   GAME 


COLORADO  TRAILS  21 

you  the  best  horse  in  this  country  in  a  few  days.  Fact 
is  I've  bought  him,  an'  he'll  come  with  my  cowboy, 
Vern.   .   .   .     Now,  we're  organized.     Let's  move." 

We  rode  through  a  meadow  along  a  spruce  slope  above 
which  towered  the  great  mountain.  It  was  a  zigzag 
trail,  rough,  boggy,  and  steep  in  places.  The  Stillwater 
meandered  here,  and  little  breaks  on  the  water  gave 
evidence  of  feeding  trout.  We  had  several  miles  of 
meadow,  and  then  sheered  off  to  the  left  up  into  the 
timber.  It  was  a  spruce  forest,  very  still  and  fragrant. 
We  climbed  out  up  on  a  bench,  and  across  a  flat,  up 
another  bench,  out  of  the  timber  into  the  patches  of 
snow.  Here  snow  could  be  felt  in  the  air.  Water  was 
everywhere.  I  saw  a  fox,  a  badger,  and  another  furry 
creature,  too  illusive  to  name.  One  more  climb  brought 
us  to  the  top  of  the  Flattop  Pass,  about  eleven  thousand 
feet.  The  view  in  the  direction  from  which  we  had  come 
was  splendid,  and  led  the  eye  to  the  distant  sweeping 
ranges,  dark  and  dim  along  the  horizon.  The  Flattops 
were  flat  enough,  but  not  very  wide  at  this  pass,  and  we 
were  soon  going  down  again  into  a  green  gulf  of  spruce, 
with* ragged  peaks  lifting  beyond.  Here  again  I  got  the 
suggestion  of  limitless  space.  It  took  us  an  hour  to  ride 
down  to  Little,  Trappers  Lake,  a  small  clear  green  sheet 
of  water.  The  larger  lake  was  farther  down.  It  was  big, 
irregular,  and  bordered  by  spruce  forests,  and  shadowed 
by  the  lofty  gray  peaks. 

The  Camp'  was  on  the  far  side.  The  air  appeared 
rather  warm,  and  mosquitoes  bothered  us.  However, 
they  did  not  stay  long.  It  was  after  sunset  and  I  was  too 
tired  to  have'  many  impressions. 

Our  cook  appeared  to  be  a  melancholy  man.     He  had 

a  deep  quavering  voice,  a  long  drooping  mustache  and 

sad  eyes.     He  was  silent  most  of  the  time.     The  men 

called  him  Bill,  and  yelled  when  they  spoke,  for  he  was 

3 


22  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

somewhat  deaf.  It  did  not  take  me  long  to  discover 
that  he  was  a  good  cook. 

Our  tent  was  pitched  down  the  slope  from  the  cook 
tent.  We  were  too  tired  to  sit  round  a  camp-fire  and 
talk.  The  stars  were  white  and  splendid,  and  they 
hung  over  the  flat  ridges  like  great  beacon  lights.  The 
lake  appeared  to  be  inclosed  on  three  sides  by  amphi- 
theatric  mountains,  black  with  spruce  up  to  the  gray 
walls  of  rock.  The  night  grew  cold  and  very  still.  The 
bells  on  the  horses  tinkled  distantly.  There  was  a  soft 
murmur  of  falling  water.  A  lonesome  coyote  barked, 
and  that  thrilled  me.  Teague's  dogs  answered  this 
prowler,  and  some  of  them  had  voices  to  make  a  hunter 
thrill.  One,  the  bloodhound  Cain,  had  a  roar  like  a 
lion's.  I  had  not  gotten  acquainted  with  the  hounds, 
and  I  was  thinking  about  them  when  I  fell  asleep. 

Next  morning  I  was  up  at  five-thirty.  The  air  was 
cold  and  nipping  and  frost  shone  on  grass  and  sage.  A 
red  glow  of  sunrise  gleamed  on  the  tip  of  the  mountain 
and  slowly  grew  downward. 

The  cool  handle  of  an  axe  felt  good.  I  soon  found, 
however,  that  I  could  not  wield  it  long  for  lack  of  breath. 
The  elevation  was  close  to  ten  thousand  feet  and  the  air 
at  that  height  was  thin  and  rare.  After  each  series  of 
lusty  strokes  I  had  to  rest.  R.  C,  who  could  handle  an 
axe  as  he  used  to  swing  a  baseball  bat,  made  fun  of  my 
efforts.  Whereupon  I  relinquished  the  tool  to  him,  and 
chuckled  at  his  discomfiture. 

After  breakfast  R.  C.  and  I  got  out  our  tackles  and 
rigged  up  fly  rods,  and  sallied  forth  to  the  lake  with  the 
same  eagerness  we  had  felt  when  we  were  boys  going 
after  chubs  and  sunfish.  The  lake  glistened  green  in  the 
sunlight  and  it  lay  like  a  gem  at  the  foot  of  the  mag- 
nificent black  slopes. 

The  water  was  full  of  little  floating  particles  that 


COLORADO  TRAILS  23 

Teague  called  wild  rice.  I  thought  the  lake  had  begun 
to  work,  like  eastern  lakes  during  dog  days.  It  did  not 
look  propitious  for  fishing,  but  Teague  reassured  us.  The 
outlet  of  this  lake  was  the  head  of  White  River.  We 
tried  the  outlet  first,  but  trout  were  not  rising  there. 
Then  we  began  wading  and  casting  along  a  shallow  bar 
of  the  lake.  Teague  had  instructed  us  to  cast,  then 
drag  the  flies  slowly  across  the  surface  of  the  water,  in 
imitation  of  a  swimming  fly  or  bug.  I  tried  this,  and 
several  times,  when  the  leader  was  close  to  me  and  my 
rod  far  back,  I  had  strikes.  With  my  rod  in  that  posi- 
tion I  could  not  hook  the  trout.  Then  I  cast  my  own 
way,  letting  the  flies  sink  a  little.  To  my  surprise  and 
dismay  I  had  only  a  few  strikes  and  could  not  hook  the 
fish. 

R.  C,  however,  had  better  luck,  and  that  too  in  wading 
right  over  the  ground  I  had  covered.  To  beat  me  at 
anything  always  gave  him  the  most  unaccountable  fiend- 
ish pleasure. 

"These  are  educated  trout,"  he  said.  "It  takes  a 
skillful  fisherman  to  make  them  rise.  Now  anybody 
can  catch  the  big  game  of  the  sea,  which  is  your  forte. 
But  here  you  are  N.  G.  .  .  .  Watch  me  cast!" 

I  watched  him  make  a  most  atrocious  cast.  But  the 
water  boiled,  and  he  hooked  two  good-sized  trout  at 
once.  Quite  speechless  with  envy  and  admiration  I 
watched  him  play  them  and  eventually  beach  them. 
They  were  cutthroat  trout,  silvery-sided  and  marked 
with  the  red  slash  along  their  gills  that  gave  them  their 
name.  I  did  not  catch  any  while  wading,  but  from  the 
bank  I  spied  one,  and  dropping  a  fly  in  front  of  his  nose, 
I  got  him.  R.  C.  caught  four  more,  all  about  a  pound 
in  weight,  and  then  he  had  a  strike  that  broke  his 
leader.  He  did  not  have  another  leader,  so  we  walked 
back  to  camp. 


24  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

Wild  flowers  colored  the  open  slopes  leading  down  out 
of  the  forest.  Golden  rod,  golden  daisies,  and  bluebells 
were  plentiful  and  very  pretty.  Here  I  found  my  first 
columbine,  the  beautiful  flower  that  is  the  emblem  of 
Colorado.  In  vivid  contrast  to  its  blue,  Indian  paint 
brush  thinly  dotted  the  slopes  and  varied  in  color  from 
red  to  pink  and  from  white  to  yellow. 

My  favorite  of  all  wild  flowers — the  purple  asters — 
were  there  too,  on  tall  nodding  stems,  with  pale  faces 
held  up  to  the  light.  The  reflection  of  mountain  and 
forest  in  Trappers  Lake  was  clear  and  beautiful. 

The  hounds  bayed  our  approach  to  camp.  We  both 
made  a  great  show  about  beginning  our  little  camp 
tasks,  but  we  did  not  last  very  long.  The  sun  felt  so 
good  and  it  was  so  pleasant  to  lounge  under  a  pine. 
One  of  the  blessings  of  outdoor  life  was  that  a  man  could 
be  like  an  Indian  and  do  nothing.  So  from  rest  I  passed 
to  dreams  and  from  dreams  to  sleep. 

In  the  afternoon  R.  C.  and  I  went  out  again  to  try  for 
trout.  The  lake  appeared  to  be  getting  thicker  with 
that  floating  muck  and  we  could  not  raise  a  fish.  Then 
we  tried  the  outlet  again.  Here  the  current  was  swift. 
I  found  a  place  between  two  willow  banks  where  trout 
were  breaking  on  the  surface.  It  took  a  long  cast  for 
me,  but  about  every  tenth  attempt  I  would  get  a  fly 
over  the  right  place  and  raise  a  fish.  They  were  small, 
but  that  did  not  detract  from  my  gratification.  The 
light  on  the  water  was  just  right  for  me  to  see  the  trout 
rise,  and  that  was  a  beautiful  sight  as  well  as  a  distinct 
advantage.  I  had  caught  four  when  a  shout  from  R.  C. 
called  me  quickly  down  stream.  I  found  him  standing 
in  the  middle  of  a  swift  chute  with  his  rod  bent  double 
and  a  long  line  out. 

"Got  a  whale!"  he  yelled.  "See  him — down  there — 
in  that  white  water.     See  him  flash  red !  ...  Go  down 


COLORADO  TRAILS  25 

there  and  land  him  for  me.  Hurry!  He's  got  all  the 
line!" 

I  ran  below  to  an  open  place  in  the  willows.  Here  the 
stream  was  shallow  and  very  swift.  In  the  white  water 
I  caught  a  flashing  gleam  of  red.  Then  I  saw  the  shine 
of  the  leader.  But  I  could  not  reach  it  without  wading 
in.  When  I  did  this  the  trout  lunged  out.  He  looked 
crimson  and  silver.  I  could  have  put  my  fist  in  his 
mouth. 

"Grab  the  leader!  Yank  him  out!"  yelled  R.  C.  in 
desperation.     "There!     He's  got  all  the  line." 

"But  it'd  be  better  to  wade  down,"  I  yelled  back. 

He  shouted  that  the  water  was  too  deep  and  for  me 
to  save  his  fish.  This  was  an  awful  predicament  for  me. 
I  knew  the  instant  I  grasped  the  leader  that  the  big 
trout  would  break  it  or  pull  free.  The  same  situation, 
with  different  kinds  of  fish,  had  presented  itself  many 
times  on  my  numberless  fishing  jaunts  with  R.  C.  and 
they  all  crowded  to  my  mind.  Nevertheless  I  had  no 
choice.  Plunging  in  to  my  knees  I  frantically  reached 
for  the  leader.  The  red  trout  made  a  surge.  I  missed 
him.  R.  C.  yelled  that  something  would  break.  That 
was  no  news  to  me.  Another  plunge  brought  me  in  touch 
with  the  leader.  Then  I  essayed  to  lead  the  huge  cut- 
throat ashore.  He  was  heavy.  But  he  was  tired  and 
that  gave  birth  to  hopes.  Near  the  shore  as  I  was 
about  to  lift  him  he  woke  up,  swam  round  me  twice, 
thfen  ran  between  my  legs. 

When,  a  little  later,  R.  C.  came  panting  down  stream 
I  was  sitting  on  the  bank,  all  wet,  with  one  knee  skinned 
and  I  was  holding  his  broken  leader  in  my  hands. 
Strange  to  say,  he  went  into  a  rage!  Blamed  me  for 
the  loss  of  that  big  trout!  Under  such  circumstances 
it  was  always  best  to  maintain  silence  and  I  did  so  as 
long  as  I  could.     After  his  paroxysm  had  spent  itself 


26  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

and  he  had  become  somewhat  near  a  rational  being  once 
more  he  asked  me : 

"Was  he  big?" 

"Oh — a  whale  of  a  trout!"  I  replied. 

"Humph!     Well,  how  big?" 

Thereupon  I  enlarged  upon  the  exceeding  size  and 
beauty  of  that  trout.  I  made  him  out  very  much  big- 
ger than  he  actually  looked  to  me  and  I  minutely  de- 
scribed his  beauty  and  wonderful  gaping  mouth.  R.  C. 
groaned  and  that  was  my  revenge. 

We  returned  to  camp  early,  and  I  took  occasion  to 
scrape  acquaintance  with  the  dogs.  It  was  a  strangely 
assorted  pack — four  Airedales,  one  bloodhound  and  seven 
other  hounds  of  mixed  breeds.  There  were  also  three 
pup  hounds,  white  and  yellow,  very  pretty  dogs,  and 
like  all  pups,  noisy  and  mischievous.  They  made  friends 
easily.  This  applied  also  to  one  of  the  Airedales,  a  dog 
recently  presented  to  Teague  by  some  estimable  old  lady 
who  had  called  him  Kaiser  and  made  a  pet  of  him.  As 
might  have  been  expected  of  a  dog,  even  an  Airedale,  with 
that  name,  he  was  no  good.  But  he  was  very  affection- 
ate, and  exceedingly  funny.  When  he  was  approached 
he  had  a  trick  of  standing  up,  holding  up  his  forepaws  in 
an  appealing  sort  of  way,  with  his  head  twisted  in  the 
most  absurd  manner.  This  was  when  he  was  chained — 
otherwise  he  would  have  been  climbing  up  on  anyone  who 
gave  him  the  chance.  He  was  the  most  jealous  dog  I 
ever  saw.  He  could  not  be  kept  chained  very  long 
because  he  always  freed  himself.  At  meal  time  he  would 
slip  noiselessly  behind  some  one  and  steal  the  first  morsel 
he  could  snatch.  Bill  was  always  rapping  Kaiser  with 
pans  or  billets  of  firewood. 

Next  morning  was  clear  and  cold.  We  had  breakfast, 
and  then  saddled  up  to  ride  to  Big  Fish  Lake.  For  an 
hour  we  rode  up  and  down  ridges  of  heavy  spruce,  along 


COLORADO  TRAILS  27 

a  trail.  We  saw  elk  and  deer  sign.  Elk  tracks  appeared 
almost  as  large  as  cow  tracks.  When  w^e  left  the  trail 
to  climb  into  heavy  timber  we  began  to  look  for  game. 
The  forest  was  dark,  green  and  brown,  silent  as  a  grave. 
No  squirrels  or  birds  or  sign  of  life !  We  had  a  hard  ride 
up  and  down  steep  slopes.  A  feature  was  the  open 
swaths  made  by  avalanches.  The  ice  and  snow  had  cut 
a  path  through  the  timber,  and  the  young  shoots  of 
spruce  were  springing  up.  I  imagined  the  roar  made  by 
that  tremendous  slide. 

We  found  elk  tracks  everywhere  and  some  fresh  sign, 
where  the  grass  had  been  turned  recently,  and  also  much 
old  and  fresh  sign  where  the  elk  had  skinned  the  saplings 
by  rubbing  their  antlers  to  get  rid  of  the  velvet.  Some 
of  these  rubs  looked  like  blazes  made  by  an  axe.  The 
Airedale  Fox,  a  wonderful  dog,  routed  out  a  she-coyote 
that  evidently  had  a  den  somewhere,  for  she  barked 
angrily  at  the  dog  and  at  us.  Fox  could  not  catch  her. 
She  led  him  round  in  a  circle,  and  we  could  not  see  her 
in  the  thick  brush.  It  was  fine  to  hear  the  wild  staccato 
note  again. 

We  crossed  many  little  parks,  bright  and  green,  bloom- 
ing with  wild  asters  and  Indian  paint  brush  and  golden 
daisies.  The  patches  of  red  and  purple  were  exceed- 
ingly beautiful.  Everywhere  we  rode  we  were  knee  deep 
in  flowers.  At  length  we  came  out  of  the  heavy  timber 
down  upon  Big  Fish  Lake.  This  lake  was  about  half  a 
mile  across,  deep  blue-green  in  color,  with  rocky  shores. 
Upon  the  opposite  side  were  beaver  mounds.  We  could 
see  big  trout  swimming  round,  but  they  would  not  rise 
to  a  fly.  R.  C.  went  out  in  an  old  boat  and  paddled  to 
the  head  of  the  lake  and  fished  at  the  inlet.  Here  he 
caught  a  fine  trout.  I  went  around  and  up  the  little 
river  that  fed  the  lake.  It  curved  swiftly  through  a 
meadow,  and  had  deep,  dark  eddies  under  mossy,  flower- 


28  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

ing  banks.  At  other  places  the  stream  ran  swiftly  over 
clean  gravel  beds.  It  was  musical  and  clear  as  crystal, 
and  to  the  touch  of  hand,  as  cold  as  ice  water.  I  waded 
in  and  began  to  cast.  I  saw  several  big  trout,  and  at 
last  coaxed  one  to  take  my  fly.  But  I  missed  him.  Then 
in  a  swift  current  a  flash  of  red  caught  my  eye  and  I  saw 
a  big  trout  lazily  rise  to  my  fly.  Saw  him  take  it !  And 
I  hooked  him.  He  was  not  active,  but  heavy  and  plung- 
ing, and  he  bored  in  and  out,  and  made  short  runs.  I 
had  not  seen  such  beautiful  red  colors  in  any  fish.  He 
made  a  fine  fight,  but  at  last  I  landed  him  on  the  grass, 
a  cutthroat  of  about  one  and  three-quarter  pounds,  deep 
red  and  silver  and  green,  and  spotted  all  over.  That  was 
the  extent  of  my  luck. 

We  went  back  to  the  point,  and  thought  we  would 
wait  a  little  while  to  see  if  the  trout  would  begin  to  rise. 
But  they  did  not.  A  storm  began  to  mutter  and  boom 
along  the  battlements.  Great  gray  clouds  obscured  the 
peaks,  and  at  length  the  rain  came.  It  was  cold  and 
cutting.  We  sought  the  shelter  of  spruces  for  a  while, 
and  waited.  After  an  hour  it  cleared  somewhat,  and 
R.  C.  caught  a  fine  one-pound  cutthroat,  all  green  and 
silver,  with  only  two  slashes  of  red  along  under  the  gills. 
Then  another  storm  threatened.  Before  we  got  ready 
to  leave  for  camp  the  rain  began  again  to  fall,  and  we 
looked  for  a  wetting.  It  was  raining  hard  when  we  rode 
into  the  woods  and  very  cold.  The  spruces  were  drip- 
ping. But  we  soon  got  warm  from  hard  riding  up  steep 
slopes.  After  an  hour  the  rain  ceased,  the  sun  came  out, 
and  from  the  open  places  high  up  we  could  see  a  great 
green  void  of  spruce,  and  beyond,  boundless  black 
ranges,  running  off  to  dim  horizon.  We  flushed  a  big 
blue  grouse  with  a  brood  of  little  ones,  and  at  length 
another  big  one. 

In  one  of  the  open  parks  the  Airedale  Fox  showed 


COLORADO  TRAILS  29 

signs  of  scenting  game.  There  was  a  patch  of  ground 
where  the  grass  was  pressed  down.  Teague  whispered 
and  pointed.  I  saw  the  gray  rump  of  an  elk  protruding 
from  behind  some  spruces.  I  beckoned  for  R.  C.  and 
we  both  dismounted.  Just  then  the  elk  rose  and  stalked 
out.  It  was  a  magnificent  bull  with  crowning  lofty- 
antlers.  The  shoulders  and  neck  appeared  black.  He 
raised  his  head,  and  turning,  trotted  away  with  ease  and 
grace  for  such  a  huge  beast.  That  was-a  wild  and  beau- 
tiful sight  I  had  not  seen  before.  We  were  entranced, 
and  when  he  disappeared,  we  burst  out  with  exclamations. 

We  rode  on  toward  camp,  and  out  upon  a  bench  that 
bordered  the  lofty  red  wall  of  rock.  From  there  we 
went  down  into  heavy  forest  again,  dim  and  gray,  with 
its  dank,  penetrating  odor,  and  oppressive  stillness.  The 
forest  primeval!  When  we  rode  out  of  that  into  open 
slopes  the  afternoon  was  far  advanced,  and  long  shadows 
lay  across  the  distant  ranges.  When  we  reached  camp, 
supper  and  a  fire  to  warm  cold  wet  feet  were  exceedingly 
welcome.     I  was  tired. 

Later,  R.  C.  and  I  rode  up  a  mile  or  so  above  camp,  and 
hitched  our  horses  near  Teague's  old  corral.  Our  inten- 
tion was  to  himt  up  along  the  side  of  the  slope.  Teague 
came  along  presently.  We  waited,  hoping  the  big  black 
clouds  would  break.  But  they  did  not.  They  rolled 
down  with  gray,  swirling  edges,  like  smoke,  and  a  storm 
enveloped  us.  We  sought  shelter  in  a  thick  spruce.  It 
rained  and  hailed.  By  and  bye  the  air  grew  bitterly 
cold,  and  Teague  suggested  we  give  up,  and  ride  back. 
So  we  did.  The  mountains  were  dim  and  obscure  through 
the  gray  gloom,  and  the  black  spear-tipped  spruces  looked 
ghostly  against  the  background.  The  lightning  was 
vivid,  and  the  thunder  rolled  and  crashed  in  magnificent 
bombardment  across  the  heavens. 

Next  morning  at  six-thirty  the  sun  was  shining  clear, 


30  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

and  only  a  few  clouds  sailed  in  the  blue.  Wind  was  in 
the  west  and  the  weather  promised  fair.  But  clouds 
began  to  creep  up  behind  the  mountains,  first  hazy,  then 
white,  then  dark.  Nevertheless  we  decided  to  ride  out, 
and  cross  the  Flattop  rim,  and  go  around  what  they  call 
the  Chinese  Wall.  It  rained  as  we  climbed  through  the 
spruces  above  Little  Trappers  Lake.  And  as  we  got 
near  the  top  it  began  to  hail.  Again  the  air  grew  cold. 
Once  out  on  top  I  found  a  wide  expanse,  green  and  white, 
level  in  places,  but  with  huge  upheavals  of  ridge.  There 
were  flowers  here  at  eleven  thousand  feet.  The  view  to 
the  rear  was  impressive — a  wide  up-and-down  plain 
studded  with  out-cropping  of  rocks,  and  patches  of  snow. 
We  were  then  on  top  of  the  Chinese  Wall,  and  the  view 
to  the  west  was  grand.  At  the  moment  hail  was  falling 
thick  and  white,  and  to  stand  above  the  streaked  curtain, 
as  it  fell  into  the  abyss  was  a  strange  new  experience. 
Below,  two  thousand  feet,  lay  the  spruce  forest,  and  it 
sloped  and  dropped  into  the  White  River  Valley,  which 
in  turn  rose,  a  long  ragged  dark-green  slope,  up  to  a  bare 
jagged  peak.  Beyond  this  stretched  range  on  range, 
dark  under  the  lowering  pall  of  clouds.  On  top  we  found 
fresh  Rocky  Mountain  sheep  tracks.  A  little  later,  going 
into  a  draw,  we  crossed  a  snow-bank,  solid  as  ice.  We 
worked  down  into  this  draw  into  the  timber.  It  hailed, 
and  rained  some  more,  then  cleared.  The  warm  sun  felt 
good.  Once  down  in  the  parks  we  began  to  ride  through 
a  flower-garden.  Every  slope  was  beautiful  in  gold,  and 
red,  and  blue  and  white.  These  parks  were  luxuriant 
with  grass,  and  everywhere  we  found  elk  beds,  where  the 
great  stags  had  been  lying,  to  flee  at  our  approach.  But 
we  did  not  see  one.  The  bigness  of  this  slope  impressed 
me.  We  rode  miles  and  miles,  and  every  park  was  sur- 
rounded by  heavy  timber.  At  length  we  got  into  a 
burned  district  where  the  tall  dead  spruces  stood  sear  and 


COLORADO  TRAILS  31 

ghastly,  and  the  ground  was  so  thickly  strewn  with  fallen 
trees  that  we  had  difficulty  in  threading  a  way  through 
them.  Patches  of  aspen  grew  on  the  hillside,  still  fresh 
and  green  despite  this  frosty  morning.  Here  we  found  a 
sego  lily,  one  of  the  most  beautiful  of  flowers.  Here  also 
I  saw  pink  Indian  paint  brush.  At  the  foot  of  this  long 
burned  slope  we  came  to  the  White  River  trail,  and  fol- 
lowed it  up  and  around  to  camp. 

Late  in  the  evening,  about  sunset,  I  took  my  rifle  and 
slipped  off  into  the  woods  back  of  camp.  I  walked  a 
short  distance,  then  paused  to  listen  to  the  silence  of  the 
forest.  There  was  not  a  sound.  It  was  a  place  of  peace. 
By  and  bye  I  heard  snapping  of  twigs,  and  presently 
heard  R.  C.  and  Teague  approaching  me.  We  pene- 
trated half  a  mile  into  the  spruce,  pausing  now  and  then 
to  listen.  At  length  R.  C.  heard  something.  We 
stopped.  After  a  little  I  heard  the  ring  of  a  horn  on 
wood.  It  was  thrilling.  Then  came  the  crack  of  a  hoof 
on  stone,  then  the  clatter  of  a  loosened  rock.  We  crept 
on.  But  that  elk  or  deer  evaded  us.  We  hunted  around 
till  dark  without  farther  sign  of  any  game. 

R.  C.  and  Teague  and  I  rode  out  at  seven-thirty  and 
went  down  White  River  for  three  miles.  In  one  patch  of 
bare  ground  we  saw  tracks  of  five  deer  where  they  had 
come  in  for  salt.  Then  we  climbed  high  up  a  burned 
ridge,  winding  through  patches  of  aspen.  We  climbed 
ridge  after  ridge,  and  at  last  got  out  of  the  burned  district 
into  reaches  of  heavy  spruce.  Coming  to  a  park  full  of 
deer  and  elk  tracks,  we  dismounted  and  left  our  horses. 
I  went  to  the  left,  and  into  some  beautiful  woods,  where 
I  saw  beds  of  deer  or  elk,  and  many  tracks.  Returning 
to  the  horses,  I  led  them  into  a  larger  park,  and  climbed 
high  into  the  open  and  watched.  There  I  saw  some  little 
squirrels  about  three  inches  long,  and  some  gray  birds, 
very  tame.     I  waited  a  long  time  before  there  was  any 


32  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

sign  of  R.  C.  or  Teague,  and  then  it  was  the  dog  I  saw 
first.  I  whistled,  and  they  climbed  up  to  me.  We 
mounted  and  rode  on  for  an  hour,  then  climbed  through 
a  magnificent  forest  of  huge  trees,  windfalls,  and  a  ferny, 
mossy,  soft  ground.  At  length  we  came  out  at  the  head 
of  a  steep,  bare  slope,  running  down  to  a  verdant  park 
crossed  by  stretches  of  timber.  On  the  way  back  to 
camp  we  ran  across  many  elk  beds  and  deer  trails,  and 
for  a  while  a  small  band  of  elk  evidently  trotted  ahead 
of  us,  but  out  of  sight. 

Next  day  we  started  for  a  few  days'  trip  to  Big  Fish 
Lake.  R.  C.  and  I  went  along  up  around  the  mountain. 
I  found  our  old  trail,  and  was  at  a  loss  only  a  few  times. 
We  saw  fresh  elk  sign,  but  no  live  game  at  all. 

In  the  afternoon  we  fished.  I  went  up  the  river  half 
a  mile,  while  R.  C.  fished  the  lake.  Neither  of  us  had 
any  luck.  Later  we  caught  four  trout,  one  of  which  was 
fair  sized. 

Toward  sunset  the  trout  began  to  rise  all  over  the 
lake,  but  we  could  not  get  them  to  take  a  fly. 

The  following  day  we  went  up  to  Twin  Lakes  and  found 
them  to  be  beautiful  little  green  gems  surrounded  by 
spruce.  I  saw  some  big  trout  in  the  large  lake,  but  they 
were  wary.  We  tried  every  way  to  get  a  strike.  No  use ! 
In  the  little  lake  matters  were  worse.  It  was  full  of  trout 
up  to  two  pounds.  They  would  run  at  the  fly,  only  to 
refuse  it.  Exasperating  work!  We  gave  up  and  re- 
turned to  Big  Fish.  After  supper  we  went  out  to  try 
again.  The  lake  was  smooth  and  quiet.  All  at  once, 
as  if  by  concert,  the  trout  began  to  rise  everywhere.  In 
a  little  bay  we  began  to  get  strikes.  I  could  see  the  fish 
rise  to  the  fly.  The  small  ones  were  too  swift  and  the 
large  ones  too  slow,  it  seemed.  We  caught  one,  and  then 
had  bad  luck.  We  snarled  our  lines,  drifted  wrong,  broke 
leaders,  snapped  off  flies,  hooked  too  quick  and  too  slow, 


COLORADO  TRAILS  33 

and  did  everything  that  was  clumsy.  I  lost  two  big  fish 
because  they  followed  the  fly  as  I  drew  it  toward  me 
across  the  water  to  imitate  a  swimming  fly.  Of  course 
this  made  a  large  slack  line  which  I  could  not  get  up. 
Finally  I  caught  one  big  fish,  and  altogether  we  got  seven. 
All  in  that  little  bay,  where  the  water  was  shallow !  In 
other  places  we  could  not  catch  a  fish.  I  had  one  vicious 
strike.  The  fish  appeared  to  be  feeding  on  a  tiny  black 
gnat,  which  we  could  not  imitate.  This  was  the  most 
trying  experience  of  all.  We  ought  to  have  caught  a 
basketful. 

The  next  day,  September  first,  we  rode  down  along  the 
outlet  of  Big  Fish  to  White  River  and  down  that  for 
miles  to  fish  for  grayling.  The  stream  was  large  and 
swift  and  cold.  It  appeared  full  of  ice  water  and  rocks, 
but  no  fish.  We  met  fishermen,  an  automobile,  and  a 
camp  outfit.  That  was  enough  for  me.  Where  an  auto- 
mobile can  run,  I  do  not  belong.  The  fishing  was  poor. 
But  the  beautiful  open  valley,  flowered  in  gold  and 
purple,  was  recompense  for  a  good  deal  of  bad  luck. 

A  grayling,  or  what  they  called  a  grayling,  was  not  as 
beautiful  a  fish  as  my  fancy  had  pictured.  He  resembled 
a  sucker  or  mullet,  had  a  small  mouth,  dark  color,  and 
was  rather  a  sluggish-looking  fish. 

We  rode  back  through  a  thunderstorm,  and  our  yellow 
slickers  afforded  much  comfort. 

Next  morning  was  bright,  clear,  cold.  I  saw  the  moon 
go  down  over  a  mountain  rim  rose-flushed  with  the 
sunrise. 

R.  C.  and  I,  with  Teague,  started  for  the  top  of  the 
big  mountain  on  the  west.  I  had  a  new  horse,  a  roan, 
and  he  looked  a  thoroughbred.  He  appeared  tired. 
But  I  thought  he  would  be  great.  We  took  a  trail 
through  the  woods,  dark  green-gray,  cool  and  verdant, 
odorous  and  still.     We  began  to  climb.     Occasionally 


34  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

we  crossed  parks,  and  little  streams.  Up  near  the  long, 
bare  slope  the  spruce  trees  grew  large  and  far  apart. 
They  were  beautiful,  gray  as  if  bearded  with  moss. 
Beyond  this  we  got  into  the  rocks  and  climbing  became 
arduous.  Long  zigzags  up  the  slope  brought  us  to  the 
top  of  a  notch,  where  at  the  right  lay  a  patch  of  snow. 
The  top  of  the  mountain  was  comparatively  flat,  but  it 
had  timbered  ridges  and  bare  plains  and  little  lakes, 
with  dark  domes,  rising  beyond.  We  rode  around  to  the 
right,  climbing  out  of  the  timber  to  where  the  dwarf 
spruces  and  brush  had  a  hard  struggle  for  life.  The 
great  gulf  below  us  was  immense,  dark,  and  wild,  studded 
with  lakes  and  parks,  and  shadowed  by  moving  clouds. 

Sheep  tracks,  old  and  fresh,  afforded  us  thrills. 

Away  on  the  western  rim,  where  we  could  look  down 
upon  a  long  rugged  iron-gray  ridge  of  mountain,  our 
guide  using  the  glass,  found  two  big  stags.  We  all  had 
our  fill  of  looking.  I  could  see  them  plainly  with  naked 
eyes. 

We  decided  to  go  back  to  where  we  could  climb  down 
on  that  side,  halter  the  horses,  leave  all  extra  accoutre- 
ments, and  stalk  those  stags,  and  take  a  picture  of  them. 

I  led  the  way,  and  descended  under  the  rim.  It  was 
up  and  down  over  rough  shale,  and  up  steps  of  broken 
rocks,  and  down  little  cliffs.  We  crossed  the  ridge  twice, 
many  times  having  to  lend  a  hand  to  each  other. 

At  length  I  reached  a  point  where  I  could  see  the  stags 
lying  down.  The  place  was  an  open  spot  on  a  rocky 
promonotory  with  a  fringe  of  low  spruces.  The  stags 
were  magnificent  in  size,  with  antlers  in  the  velvet.  One 
had  twelve  points.  They  were  lying  in  the  sun  to  harden 
their  horns,  according  to  our  guide. 

I  slipped  back  to  the  others,  and  we  all  decided  to  have 
a  look.  So  we  climbed  up.  All  of  us  saw  the  stags, 
twitching  ears  and  tails. 


COLORADO  TRAILS  35 

Then  we  crept  back,  and  once  more  I  took  the  lead  to 
crawl  round  under  the  ledge  so  we  could  come  up  about 
even  with  them.  Here  I  found  the  hardest  going  yet. 
I  came  to  a  wind-worn  crack  in  the  thin  ledge,  and  from 
this  I  could  just  see  the  tips  of  the  antlers.  I  beckoned 
the  others.  Laboriously  they  climbed.  R.  C.  went 
through  first.     I  went  over  next,  and  then  came  Teague. 

R.  C.  and  I  started  to  crawl  down  to  a  big  rock  that 
was  our  objective  point.  We  went  cautiously,  with 
bated  breath  and  pounding  hearts.  When  we  got  there 
I  peeped  over  to  see  the  stags  still  lying  down.  But  they 
had  heads  intent  and  wary.  Still  I  did  not  think  they 
had  scented  us.  R.  C.  took  a  peep,  and  turning  excitedly 
he  whispered : 

' '  See  only  one.     And  he's  standing ! ' ' 

And  I  answered:  "Let's  get  down  around  to  the  left 
where  we  can  get  a  better  chance."  It  was  only  a  few 
feet  down.     We  got  there. 

When  he  peeped  over  at  this  point  he  exclaimed: 
"They're  gone!" 

It  was  a  keen  disappointment.  "They  winded  us," 
I  decided. 

We  looked  and  looked.  But  we  could  not  see  to  our 
left  because  of  the  bulge  of  rock.  We  climbed  back. 
Then  I  saw  one  of  the  stags  loping  leisurely  off  to  the  left. 
Teague  was  calling.  He  said  they  had  walked  off  the 
promontory,  looking  up,  and  stopping  occasionally. 

Then  we  realized  we  must  climb  back  along  that 
broken  ridge  and  then  up  to  the  summit  of  the  mountain. 
So  we  started. 

That  climb  back  was  proof  of  the  effect  of  excitement 
on  judgment.  We  had  not  calculated  at  all  on  the  dis- 
tance or  ruggedness,  and  we  had  a  job  before  us.  We 
got  along  well  under  the  western  wall,  and  fairly  well 
straight  across  through  the  long  slope  of  timber,  where 


36  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

we  saw  sheep  tracks,  and  expected  any  moment  to  sight 
an  old  ram.  But  we  did  not  find  one,  and  when  we  got 
out  of  the  timber  upon  the  bare  sHding  slope  we  had  to 
halt  a  hundred  times.  We  could  zigzag  only  a  few  steps. 
The  altitude  was  twelve  thousand  feet,  and  oxygen 
seemed  scarce,  I  nearly  dropped.  All  the  climbing 
appeared  to  come  hardest  on  the  middle  of  my  right  foot, 
and  it  could  scarcely  have  burned  hotter  if  it  had  been 
in  fire.  Despite  the  strenuous  toil  there  were  not  many 
moments  that  I  was  not  aware  of  the  vastness  of  the 
gulf  below,  or  the  peaceful  lakes,  brown  as  amber,  or  the 
golden  parks.  And  nearer  at  hand  I  found  magenta- 
colored  Indian  paint  brush,  very  exquisite  and  rare. 

Coming  out  on  a  ledge  I  spied  a  little,  dark  animal 
with  a  long  tail.  He  was  running  along  the  opposite 
promontory  about  three  hundred  yards  distant.  When 
he  stopped  I  took  a  shot  at  him  and  missed  by  appar- 
ently a  scant  half  foot. 

After  catching  our  breath  we  climbed  more  and  more, 
and  still  more,  at  last  to  drop  on  the  rim,  hot,  wet  and 
utterly  spent. 

The  air  was  keen,  cold,  and  invigorating.  We  were 
soon  rested,  and  finding  our  horses  we  proceeded  along 
the  rim  westward.  Upon  rounding  an  outcropping  of 
rock  we  flushed  a  flock  of  ptarmigan — soft  gray,  rock- 
colored  birds  about  the  size  of  pheasants,  and  when  they 
flew  they  showed  beautiful  white  bands  on  their  wings. 
These  are  the  rare  birds  that  have  feathered  feet  and  turn 
white  in  winter.  They  did  not  fly  far,  and  several  were 
so  tame  they  did  not  fly  at  all.  We  got  our  little  .22 
revolvers  and  began  to  shoot  at  the  nearest  bird.  He 
was  some  thirty  feet  distant.  But  we  could  not  hit  him, 
and  at  last  Fox,  getting  disgusted,  tried  to  catch  the 
bird  and  made  him  fly.  I  felt  relieved,  for  as  we  were 
getting  closer  and  closer  with  every  shot,  it  seemed  possi- 


COLORADO  TRAILS  37 

ble  that  if  the  ptarmigan  sat  there  long  enough  we  might 
eventually  have  hit  him.  The  mystery  was  why  we  shot 
so  poorly.  But  this  was  explained  by  R.  C,  who  dis- 
covered we  had  been  shooting  the  wrong  shells. 

It  was  a  long  hard  ride  down  the  rough  winding  trail. 
But  riding  down  was  a  vastly  different  thing  from  going 
up. 

On  September  third  we  were  up  at  five-thirty.  It  was 
clear  and  cold  and  the  red  of  sunrise  tinged  the  peaks. 
The  snow  banks  looked  pink.  All  the  early  morning 
scene  was  green,  fresh,  cool,  with  that  mountain  rareness 
of  atmosphere. 

We  packed  to  break  camp,  and  after  breakfast  it  took 
hours  to  get  our  outfit  in  shape  to  start — a  long  string, 
resembling  a  caravan.  I  knew  that  events  would  occur 
that  day.  First  we  lost  one  of  the  dogs.  Vern  went 
back  after  him.  The  dogs  were  mostly  chained  in  pairs, 
to  prevent  their  running  off.  Samson,  the  giant  hound, 
was  chained  to  a  little  dog,  and  the  others  were  paired 
not  according  to  size  by  any  means.  The  poor  dogs 
were  disgusted  with  the  arrangement.  It  developed 
presently  that  Cain,  the  bloodhound,  a  strange  and  wild 
hound  much  like  Don  of  my  old  lion-hunting  days, 
slipped  us,  and  was  not  missed  for  hours.  Teague  de- 
cided to'  send  back  for  him  later. 

Next  in  order  of  events,  as  we  rode  up  the  winding 
trail  through  the  spruce  forest,  we  met  Teague 's  cow  and 
calf,  which  he  had  kept  all  summer  in  camp.  For  some 
reason  neither  could  be  left.  Teague  told  us  to  ride  on, 
and  an  hour  later  when  we  halted  to  rest  on  the  Flattop 
Mountain  he  came  along  with  the  rest  of  the  train,  and 
in  the  fore  was  the  cow  alone.  It  was  evident  that  she 
was  distressed  and  angry,  for  it  took  two  men  to  keep 
her  in  the  trail.  And  another  thing  plain  to  me  was  the 
fact  that  she  was  going  to  demoralize  the  pack  horses. 
4 


38  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

We  were  not  across  the  wide  range  of  this  flat  mountain 
when  one  of  the  pack  animals,  a  lean  and  lanky  sorrel, 
appeared  suddenly  to  go  mad,  and  began  to  buck  off  a 
pack.  He  succeeded.  This  inspired  a  black  horse,  very 
appropriately  christened  Nigger,  to  try  his  luck,  and  he 
shifted  his  pack  in  short  order.  It  took  patience,  time, 
and  effort  to  repack.  The  cow  was  a  disorganizer.  She 
took  up  as  wide  a  trail  as  a  road.  And  the  pack  animals, 
some  with  dignity  and  others  with  disgust,  tried  to  avoid 
her  vicinity.  Going  down  the  steep  forest  trail  on  the 
other  side  the  real  trouble  began.  The  pack  train  split, 
ran  and  bolted,  crashing  through  the  trees,  plunging 
down  steep  places,  and  jumping  logs.  It  was  a  wild  sort 
of  chase.  But  luckily  the  packs  remained  intact  until 
we  were  once  more  on  open,  flat  ground.  All  went  well 
for  a  while,  except  for  an  accident  for  which  I  was  to 
blame.  I  spurred  my  horse,  and  he  plunged  suddenly 
past  R.  C.'s  mount,  colliding  with  him,  tearing  off  my 
stirrup,  and  spraining  R.  C.'s  ankle.  This  was  almost  a 
serious  accident,  as  R.  C.  has  an  old  baseball  ankle  that 
required  favoring. 

.  Next  in  order  was  the  sorrel.  As  I  saw  it,  he  heed- 
lessly went  too  near  the  cow,  which  we  now  called  Bossy, 
and  she  acted  somewhat  like  a  Spanish  Bull,  to  the  effect 
that  the  sorrel  was  scared  and  angered  at  once.  He 
began  to  run  and  plunge  and  buck  right  into  the  other 
pack  animals,  dropping  articles  from  his  pack  as  he 
dashed  along.  He  stampeded  the  train,  and  gave  the 
saddle  horses  a  scare.  When  order  was  restored  and  the 
whole  outfit  gathered  together  again  a  full  hour  had  been 
lost.  By  this  time  all  the  horses  were  tired,  and  that 
facilitated  progress,  because  there  were  no  more  serious 
breaks. 

Down  in  the  valley  it  was  hot,  and  the  ride  grew  long 
and  wearisome.     Nevertheless,  the  scenery  was  beautiful. 


COLORADO  TRAILS  39 

The  valley  was  green  and  level,  and  a  meandering  stream 
formed  many  little  lakes.  On  one  side  was  a  steep  hill 
of  sage  and  aspens,  and  on  the  other  a  black,  spear- 
pointed  spruce  forest,  rising  sheer  to  a  bold,  blunt  peak 
patched  with  snow-banks,  and  bronze  and  gray  in  the 
clear  light.  Huge  white  clouds  sailed  aloft,  making  dark 
moving  shadows  along  the  great  slopes. 

We  reached  our  turning-off  place  about  five  o'clock, 
and  again  entered  the  fragrant,  quiet  forest — a  welcome 
change.  We  climbed  and  climbed,  at  length  coming  into 
an  open  park  of  slopes  and  green  borders  of  forest,  with 
a  lake  in  the  center.  We  pitched  camp  on  the  skirt  of 
the  western  slope,  under  the  spruces,  and  worked  hard 
to  get  the  tents  up  and  boughs  cut  for  beds.  Darkness 
caught  us  with  our  hands  still  full,  and  we  ate  supper  in 
the  light  of  a  camp-fire,  with  the  black,  deep  forest  behind, 
and  the  pale  afterglow  across  the  lake. 

I  had  a  bad  night,  being  too  tired  to  sleep  well.  Many 
times  I  saw  the  moon  shadows  of  spruce  branches  trem- 
bling on  the  tent  walls,  and  the  flickering  shadows  of  the 
dying  camp-fire.  I  heard  the  melodious  tinkle  of  the 
bells  on  the  hobbled  horses.  Bossy  bawled  often — a 
discordant  break  in  the  serenity  of  the  night.  Occasion- 
ally the  hounds  bayed  her. 

Toward  morning  I  slept  some,  and  awakened  with 
what  seemed  a  broken  back.  All,  except  R.  C. ,  were  slow 
in  crawling  out.  The  sun  rose  hot.  This  lower  altitude 
was  appreciated  by  all.  After  breakfast  we  set  to  work 
to  put  the  camp  in  order. 

That  afternoon  we  rode  off  to  look  over  the  ground. 
We  crossed  the  park  and  worked  up  a  timbered  ridge 
remarkable  for  mossy,  bare  ground,  and  higher  up  for  its 
almost  total  absence  of  grass  or  flowers.  On  the  other 
side  of  this  we  had  a  fine  view  of  Mt.  Dome,  a  high  peak 
across  a  valley.    Then  we  worked  down  into  the  valley, 


40  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

which  was  full  of  parks  and  ponds  and  running  streams. 
We  found  some  fresh  sign  of  deer,  and  a  good  deal  of  old 
elk  and  deer  sign.  But  we  saw  no  game  of  any  kind. 
It  was  a  tedious  ride  back  through  thick  forest,  where  I 
observed  many  trees  that  had  been  barked  by  porcupines. 
Some  patches  were  four  feet  from  the  ground,  indicating 
that  the  porcupine  had  sat  on  the  snow  when  he  gnawed 
those  particular  places. 

After  sunset  R.  C.  and  I  went  off  down  a  trail  into  the 
woods,  and  sitting  down  under  a  huge  spruce  we  listened. 
The  forest  was  solemn  and  still.  Far  down  somewhere 
roared  a  stream,  and  that  was  all  the  sound  we  heard. 
The  gray  shadows  darkened  and  gjoom  penetrated  the 
aisles  of  the  forest,  until  all  the  sheltered  places  were 
black  as  pitch.  The  spruces  looked  spectral — and 
speaking.  The  silence  of  the  woods  was  deep,  pro- 
found, and  primeval.  It  all  worked  on  my  imagination 
until  I  began  to  hear  faint  sounds,  and  finally  grand 
orchestral  crashings  of  melody. 

On  our  return  the  strange  creeping  chill,  that  must  be 
a  descendant  of  the  old  elemental  fear,  caught  me  at  all 
obscure  curves  in  the  trail. 

Next  day  we  started  off  early,  and  climbed  through  the 
woods  and  into  the  parks  under  the  Dome.  We  scared 
a  deer  that  had  evidently  been  drinking.  His  fresh 
tracks  led  before  us,  but  we  could  not  catch  a  glimpse  of 
him. 

We  climbed  out  of  the  parks,  up  onto  the  rocky  ridges 
where  the  spruce  grew  scarce,  and  then  farther  to  the 
jumble  of  stones  that  had  weathered  from  the  great 
peaks  above,  and  beyond  that  up  the  slope  where  all 
the  vegetation  was  dwarfed,  deformed,  and  weird, 
strange  manifestation  of  its  struggle  for  life.  Here  the 
air  grew  keener  and  cooler,  and  the  light  seemed  to 
expand.     We  rode  on  to  the  steep  slope  that  led  up  to 


A   HUNTER  S   CABIN   ON    A    FROSTY    MORNING 


THE   TROUBLESOME   COUNTRY,    NOTED   FOR    GRIZZLY    BEARS 


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COLORADO  TRAILS  41 

the  gap  we  were  to  cross  between  the  Dome  and  its 
companion. 

I  saw  a  red  fox  running  up  the  slope,  and  dismounting 
I  took  a  quick  shot  at  three  hundred  yards,  and  scored 
a  hit.  It  turned  out  to  be  a  cross  fox,  and  had  very 
pretty  fur. 

When  we  reached  the  level  of  the  deep  gap  the  wind 
struck  us  hard  and  cold.  On  that  side  opened  an  abyss, 
gray  and  shelving  as  it  led  down  to  green  timber,  and 
then  on  to  the  yellow  parks  and  black  ridges  that  gleamed 
under  the  opposite  range. 

We  had  to  work  round  a  wide  amphitheater,  and  up 
a  steep  corner  to  the  top.  This  turned  out  to  be  level 
and  smooth  for  a  long  way,  with  a  short,  velvety  yellow 
grass,  like  moss,  spotted  with  flowers.  Here  at  thirteen 
thousand  feet,  the  wind  hit  us  with  exceeding  force,  and 
soon  had  us  with  freezing  hands  and  faces.  All  about  us 
were  bold  black  and  gray  peaks,  with  patches  of  snow, 
and  above  them  clouds  of  white  and  drab,  showing  blue 
sky'  between.  It  developed  that  this  grassy  summit 
ascended  in  a  long  gradual  sweep,  from  the  apex  of  which 
stretched  a  grand  expanse,  like  a  plain  of  gold,  down  and 
down,  endlessly  almost,  and  then  up  and  up  to  end  under 
a  gray  butte,  highest  of  the  points  around.  The  ride 
across  here  seemed  to  have  no  limit,  but  it  was  beautiful, 
though  severe  on  endurance.  I  saw  another  fox,  and 
dismounting,  fired  five  shots  as  he  ran,  dusting  him  with 
three  bullets.  We  rode  out  to  the  edge  of  the  mountain 
and  looked  off.  It  was  fearful,  yet  sublime.  The  world 
lay  beneath  us.  In  many  places  we  rode  along  the  rim, 
and  at  last  circled  the  great  butte,  and  worked  up  behind 
it  on  a  swell  of  slope.  Here  the  range  ran  west  and  the 
drop  was  not  sheer,  but,  gradual  with  fine  benches  for 
sheep.  We  found  many  tracks  and  fresh  sign,  but  did 
not   see   one   sheep.     Meanwhile   the   hard   wind  had 


42  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

ceased,  and  the  sun  had  come  out,  making  the  ride  com- 
fortable, as  far  as  weather  was  concerned.  We  had 
gotten  a  long  way  from  camp,  and  finding  no  trail  to 
descend  in  that  direction  we  turned  to  retrace  our  steps. 
That  was  about  one  o'clock,  and  we  rode  and  rode  and 
rode,  until  I  was  so  tired  that  I  could  not  appreciate  the 
scenes  as  I  had  on  the  way  up.  It  took  six  hours  to  get 
back  to  camp ! 

Next  morning  we  took  the  hounds  and  rode  off  for 
bear.  Eight  of  the  hounds  were  chained  in  braces,  one 
big  and  one  little  dog  together,  and  they  certainly  had  a 
hard  time  of  it.  Sampson,  the  giant  gray  and  brown 
hound,  and  Jim,  the  old  black  leader,  were  free  to  run  to 
and  fro  across  the  way.  We  rode  down  a  few  miles,  and 
into  the  forest.  There  were  two  long,  black  ridges,  and 
here  we  were  to  hunt  for  bear.  It  was  the  hardest  kind 
of  work,  turning  and  twisting  between  the  trees,  dodging 
snags,  and  brushing  aside  branches,  and  guiding  a  horse 
among  fallen  logs.  The  forest  was  thick,  and  the  ground 
was  a  rich  brown  and  black  muck,  soft  to  the  horses' 
feet.  Many  times  the  hounds  got  caught  on  snags,  and 
had  to  be  released.  Once  Sampson  picked  up  a  scent  of 
some  kind,  and  went  off  baying.  Old  Jim  ran  across  that 
trail  and  returned,  thus  making  it  clear  that  there  was 
no  bear  trail.  We  penetrated  deep  between  the  two 
ridges,  and  came  to  a  little  lake,  about  thirty  feet  wide, 
surrounded  by  rushes  and  grass.  Here  we  rested  the 
horses,  and  incidentally,  ourselves.  Fox  chased  a  duck, 
and  it  flew  into  the  woods  and  hid  under  a  log.  Fox 
trailed  it,  and  Teague  shot  it  just  as  he  might  have  a 
rabbit.  We  got  two  more  ducks,  fine  big  mallards,  the 
same  way.  It  was  amazing  to  me,  and  R.  C.  remarked 
that  never  had  he  seen  such  strange  and  foolish  ducks. 

This  forest  had  hundreds  of  trees  barked  by  porcu- 
pines, and  some  clear  to  the  top.     But  we  met  onl}''  one 


COLORADO  TRAILS  43 

of  the  animals,  and  he  left  several  quills  in  the  nose  of 
one  of  the  pups.  I  was  of  the  opinion  that  these  porcu- 
pines destroy  many  fine  trees,  as  I  saw  a  number  barked 
all  around. 

We  did  not  see  any  bear  sign.  On  the  way  back  to 
camp  we  rode  out  of  the  forest  and  down  a  wide  valley, 
the  opposite  side  of  which  was  open  slope  with  patches 
of  alder.  Even  at  a  distance  I  could  discern  the  color  of 
these  open  glades  and  grassy  benches.  They  had  a  tinge 
of  purple,  like  purple  sage.  When  I  got  to  them  I  found 
a  profusion  of  asters  of  the  most  exquisite  shades  of 
lavender,  pink  and  purple.  That  slope  was  long,  and 
all  the  way  up  we  rode  through  these  beautiful  wild 
flowers.  I  shall  never  forget  that  sight,  nor  the  many 
asters  that  shone  like  stars  out  of  the  green.  The  pink 
ones  were  new  to  me,  and  actually  did  not  seem  real. 
I  noticed  my  horse  occasionally  nipped  a  bunch  and  ate 
them,  which  seemed  to  me  almost  as  heartless  as  to  tread 
them  under  foot. 

When  we  got  up  the  slope  and  into  the  woods  again 
we  met  a  storm,  and  traveled  for  an  hour  in  the  rain,  and 
under  the  dripping  spruces,  feeling  the  cold  wet  sting  of 
swaying  branches  as  we  rode  by.  Then  the  sun  came 
out  bright  and  the  forest  glittered,  all  gold  and  green. 
The  smell  of  the  woods  after  a  rain  is  indescribable.  It 
combines  a  rare  tang  of  pine,  spruce,  earth  and  air,  all 
refreshed. 

The  day  after,  we  left  at  eight  o'clock,  and  rode  down 
to  the  main  trail,  and  up  that  for  five  miles  where  we  cut 
off  to  the  left  and  climbed  into  the  timber.  The  woods 
were  fresh  and  de\\y,  dark  and  cool,  and  for  a  long  time 
we  climbed  bench  after  bench  where  the  grass  and  ferns 
and  moss  made  a  thick,  deep  cover.  Farther  up  we  got 
into  fallen  timber  and  made  slow  progress.  At  timber 
line  we  tied  the  horses  and  climbed  up  to  the  pass  between 


44  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

two  great  mountain  ramparts.  Sheep  tracks  were  in 
evidence,  but  not  very  fresh.  Teague  and  I  cHmbed  on 
top  and  R.  C,  with  Vern,  went  below  just  along  the  tim- 
ber line.  The  climb  on  foot  took  all  my  strength,  and 
many  times  I  had  to  halt  for  breath.  The  air  was  cold. 
We  stole  along  the  rim  and  peered  over.  R.  C.  and  Vern 
looked  like  very  little  men  far  below,  and  the  dogs  re- 
sembled mice. 

Teague  climbed  higher,  and  left  me  on  a  promontory, 
watching  all  around. 

The  cloud  pageant  was  magnificent,  with  huge  billowy 
white  masses  across  the  valley,  and  to  the  west  great 
black  thunderheads  rolling  up.  The  wind  began  to  blow 
hard,  carrying  drops  of  rain  that  stung,  and  the  air  was 
nipping  cold.  I  felt  aloof  from  all  the  crowded  world, 
alone  on  the  windy  heights,  with  clouds  and  storm  all 
around  me. 

When  the  storm  threatened  I  went  back  to  the  horses. 
It  broke,  but  was  not  severe  after  all.  At  length  R.  C. 
and  the  men  returned  and  we  mounted  to  ride  back  to 
camp.  The  storm  blew  away,  leaving  the  sky  clear  and 
blue,  and  the  sun  shone  warm.  We  had  an  hour  of 
winding  in  and  out  among  windfalls  of  timber,  and  jump- 
ing logs,  and  breaking  through  brush.  Then  the  way 
sloped  down  to  a  beautiful  forest,  shady  and  green,  full 
of  mossy  dells,  almost  overgrown  with  fern,  and  low 
spreading  ground  pine  or  spruce.  The  aisles  of  the 
forest  were  long  and  shaded  by  the  stately  spruces. 
Water  ran  through  every  ravine,  sometimes  a  brawling 
brook,  sometimes  a  rivulet  hidden  under  overhanging 
mossy  banks.  We  scared  up  two  lonely  grouse,  at  long 
intervals.  At  length  we  got  into  fallen  timber,  and 
from  that  worked  into  a  jumble  of  rocks,  where  the 
going  was  rough  and  dangerous. 

The  afternoon  waned  as  we  rode  on  and  on,  up  and 


COLORADO  TRAILS  45 

down,  in  and  out,  around,  and  at  times  the  horses  stood 
almost  on  their  heads,  sHding  down  steep  places  where 
the  earth  was  soft  and  black,  and  gave  forth  a  dank  odor. 
We  passed  ponds  and  swamps,  and  little  lakes.  We  saw 
where  beavers  had  gnawed  down  aspens,  and  we  just 
escaped  miring  our  horses  in  marshes,  where  the  grass 
grew,  rich  and  golden,  hiding  the  treacherous  mire.  The 
sun  set,  and  still  we  did  not  seem  to  get  anywhere.  I 
was  afraid  darkness  would  overtake  us,  and  we  would  get 
lost  in  the  woods.  Presently  we  struck  an  old  elk  trail, 
and  following  that  for  a  while,  came  to  a  point  where  R.  C. 
and  I  recognized  a  tree  and  a  glade  where  we  had  been 
before — and  not  far  from  camp — a  welcome  discovery. 

Next  day  we  broke  camp  and  started  across  country 
for  new  territory  near  Whitley's  Peak. 

We  rode  east  up  the  mountain.  After  several  miles 
along  an  old  logging  road  we  reached  the  timber,  and 
eventually  the  top  of  the  ridge.  We  went  down,  crossing 
parks  and  swales.  There  were  cattle  pastures,  and  eaten 
over  and  trodden  so  much  they  had  no  beauty  left. 
Teague  wanted  to  camp  at  a  salt  lick,  but  I  did  not  care 
for  the  place. 

We  w^ent  on.  The  dogs  crossed  a  bear  trail,  and  burst 
out  in  a'  clamor.     We  had  a  hard  time  holding  them. 

The  guide  and  I  had  a  hot  argument.  I  did  not  want 
to  stay  there  and  chase  a  bear  in  a  cow  pasture.  ...  So 
we  went  on,  down  into  ranch  country,  and  this  disgusted 
me  further.  We' crossed  a  ranch,  and  rode  several  miles 
on  a  highway,  then  turned  abruptly,  and  climbed  a  rough, 
rocky  ridge,  covered  with  brush  and  aspen.  We  crossed 
it,  and  went  down  for  several  miles,  and  had  to  camp  in 
an  aspen  grove,  on  the  slope  of  a  ravine.  It  was  an 
uninviting  place  to  stay,  but  as  there  was  no  other  we 
had  to  make  the  best  of  it.  The  afternoon  had  waned. 
I  took  a  gun  and  went  off  down  the  ravine,  until  I  came 


46  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

to  a  deep  gorge.  Here  I  heard  the  sound  of  a  brawling 
brook.     I  sat  down  for  an  hour,  but  saw  no  game. 

That  night  I  had  a  wretched  bed,  one  that  I  could 
hardly  stay  in,  and  I  passed  miserable  hours.  I  got  up 
sore,  cramped,  sleepy  and  irritable.  We  had  to  wait 
three  hours  for  the  horses  to  be  caught  and  packed.  I 
had  predicted  straying  horses.  At  last  we  were  off,  and 
rode  along  the  steep  slope  of  a  canyon  for  several  miles, 
and  then  struck  a  stream  of  amber-colored  water.  As 
we  climbed  along  this  we  came  into  deep  spruce  forest, 
where  it  was  pleasure  to  ride.  I  saw  many  dells  and 
nooks,  cool  and  shady,  full  of  mossy  rocks  and  great 
trees.  But  flowers  were  scarce.  We  were  sorry  to  pass 
the  head-springs  of  that  stream  and  to  go  on  over  the 
divide  and  down  into  the  wooded,  but  dry  and  stony 
country.  We  rode  until  late,  and  came  at  last  to  a  park 
where  sheep  had  been  run.  I  refused  to  camp  here,  and 
Teague,  in  high  dudgeon,  rode  on.  As  it  turned  out  I 
was  both  wise  and  lucky,  for  we  rode  into  a  park  with 
many  branches,  where  there  was  good  water  and  fair 
grass  and  a  pretty  grove  of  white  pines  in  which  to  pitch 
our  tents.  I  enjoyed  this  camp,  and  had  a  fine  rest  at 
night. 

The  morning  broke  dark  and  lowering.  We  hustled 
to  get  started  before  a  storm  broke.  It  began  to  rain  as 
we  mounted  our  horses,  and  soon  we  were  in  the  midst  of 
a  cold  rain.  It  blew  hard.  We  put  on  our  slickers. 
After  a  short  ride  down  through  the  forest  we  entered 
Buffalo  Park.  This  was  a  large  park,  and  we  lost  time 
trying  to  find  a  forester's  trail  leading  out  of  it.  At  last 
we  found  one,  but  it  soon  petered  out,  and  we  were  lost 
in  thick  timber,  in  a  driving  rain, with  the  cold  and  wind 
increasing.     But  we  kept  on. 

This  forest  was  deep  and  dark,  with  tremendous  wind- 
falls, and  great  canyons  around  which  we  had  to  travel. 


COLORADO  TRAILS  47 

It  took  us  hours  to  ride  out  of  it.  When  we  began  to 
descend  once  more  we  struck  an  old  himber  road.  More 
luck — the  storm  ceased,  and  presently  we  were  out  on 
an  aspen  slope  with  a  great  valley  beneath,  and  high, 
black  peaks  beyond.  Below  the  aspens  were  long  swell- 
ing slopes  of  sage  and  grass,  gray  and  golden  and  green. 
A  ranch  lay  in  the  valley,  and  we  crossed  it  to  climb  up 
a  winding  ravine,  once  more  to  the  aspens  where  we 
camped  in  the  rancher's  pasture.  It  was  a  cold,  wet 
camp,  but  we  managed  to  be  fairly  comfortable. 

The  sunset  was  gorgeous.  The  mass  of  clouds  broke 
and  rolled.  There  was  exquisite  golden  light  on  the 
peaks,  and  many  rose-  and  violet -hued  banks  of  cloud. 

Morning  found  us  shrouded  in  fog.  We  were  late 
starting.  About  nine  the  curtain  of  gray  began  to  lift 
and  break.  We  climbed  pastures  and  aspen  thickets, 
high  up  to  the  spruce,  where  the  grass  grew  luxuriant, 
and  the  red  wall  of  rock  overhung  the  long  slopes.  The 
view  west  was  magnificent — a  long,  bulging  range  of 
mountains,  vast  stretches  of  green  aspen  slopes,  winding 
parks  of  all  shapes,  gray  and  gold  and  green,  and  jutting 
peaks,  and  here  and  there  patches  of  autumn  blaze  in 
grass  and  thicket. 

We  spent  the  afternoon  pitching  camp  on  an  aspen 
knoll,  with  water,  grass,  and  wood  near  at  hand,  and  the 
splendid  view  of  mountains  and  valleys  below. 

We  spent  many  full  days  under  the  shadow  of  Whitley's 
Peak.  After  the  middle  of  September  the  aspens  colored 
and  blazed  to  the  touch  of  frost,  and  the  mountain  slopes 
were  exceedingly  beautiful.  Against  a  background  of 
gray  sage  the  gold  and  red  and  purple  aspen  groves 
showed  too  much  like  exquisite  paintings  to  seem  real. 
In  the  mornings  the  frost  glistened  thick  and  white  on 
the  grass ;  and  after  the  gorgeous  sunsets  of  gold  over  the 
violet-hazed  ranges  the  air  grew  stingingly  cold. 


48  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

Bear-chasing  with  a  pack  of  hounds  has  been  severely- 
criticised  by  many  writers  and  I  was  among  them.  I 
believed  it  a  cowardly  business,  and  that  was  why,  if  I 
chased  bears  with  dogs,  I  wanted  to  chase  the  kind  that 
could  not  be  treed.  But  like  many  another  I  did  not 
know  what  I  was  writing  about.  I  did  not  shoot  a  bear 
out  of  a  tree  and  I  would  not  do  so,  except  in  a  case  of 
hunger.  All  the  same,  leaving  the  tree  out  of  considera- 
tion, bear-chasing  with  hounds  is  a  tremendously  excit- 
ing and  hazardous  game.  But  my  ideas  about  sport  are 
changing.  Hunting,  in  the  sportsman's  sense,  is  a  cruel 
and  degenerate  business. 

The  more  I  hunt  the  more  I  become  convinced  of 
something  wrong  about  the  game.  I  am  a  different  man 
when  I  get  a  gun  in  my  hands.  All  is  exciting,  hot- 
pressed,  red.  Hunting  is  magnificent  up  to  the  moment 
the  shot  is  fired.  After  that  it  is  another  matter.  It  is 
useless  for  sportsmen  to  tell  me  that  they,  in  particular, 
hunt  right,  conserve  the  game,  do  not  go  beyond  the 
limit,  and  all  that  sort  of  thing.  I  do  not  believe  them 
and  I  never  met  the  guide  who  did.  A  rifle  is  made  for 
killing.  When  a  man  goes  out  with  one  he  means  to 
kill.  He  may  keep  within  |the  law,  but  that  is  not  the 
question.  It  is  a  question  of  spirit,  and  men  who  love 
to  hunt  are  yielding  to  and  always  developing  the  old 
primitive  instinct  to  kill.  The  meaning  of  the  spirit  of 
life  is  not  clear  to  them.  An  argument  may  be  advanced 
that,  according  to  the  laws  of  self-preservation  and  the 
survival  of  the  fittest,  if  a  man  stops  all  strife,  all  fight, 
then  he  will  retrograde.  And  that  is  to  say  if  a  man  does 
not  go  to  the  wilds  now  and  then,  and  work  hard  and  live 
some  semblance  of  the  life  of  his  progenitors,  he  will 
weaken.  It  seems  that  he  will,  but  I  am  not  prepared 
now  to  say  whether  or  not  that  would  be  well.  The 
Germans  believe  they  are  the  race  fittest  to  survive  over 


WHITE  ASPEN    TREE,    SHOWING    MARKS    OF    BEAR    CLAWS 


A    liLACK    HEAR    TREED 


COLORADO_^TRAILS.  49 

all  others — and  that  has  made  me  a  little  sick  of  this 
Darwin  business. 

To  return,  however,  to  the  fact  that  to  ride  after 
hounds  on  a  wild  chase  is  a  dangerous  and  wonderfully 
exliilarating  experience,  I  will  relate  a  couple  of  instances, 
and  I  will  leave  it  to  my  readers  to  judge  whether  or  not 
it  is  a  cowardly  sport. 

One  afternoon  a  rancher  visited  our  camp  and  informed 
us  that  he  had  surprised  a  big  black  bear  eating  the 
carcass  of  a  dead  cow. 

* '  Good !  We'll  have  a  bear  to-morrow  night, ' '  declared 
Teague,  in  delight.  "We'll  get  him  even  if  the  trail  is 
a  day  old.     But  he'll  come  back  to-night." 

Early  next  morning  the  young  rancher  and  three  other 
boys  rode  into  camp,  saying  they  would  like  to  go  with 
us  to  see  the  fun.  We  were  glad  to  have  them,  and  we 
rode  off  through  the  frosted  sage  that  crackled  like  brittle 
glass  under  the  hoofs  of  the  horses.  Our  guide  led  toward 
a  branch  of  a  park,  and  when  we  got  within  perhaps  a 
quarter  of  a  mile  Teague  suggested  that  R.  C.  and  I  go 
ahead  on  the  chance  of  surprising  the  bear.  It  was  owing 
to  this  suggestion  that  my  brother  and  I  were  well  ahead 
of  the  others.  But  we  did  not  see  any  bear  near  the 
carcass  of  the  cow.  Old  Jim  and  Sampson  were  close 
behind  us,  and  when  Jim  came  within  forty  yards  of  that 
carcass  he  put  his  nose  up  with  a  deep  and  ringing  bay, 
and  he  shot  by  us  like  a  streak.  He  never  went  near  the 
dead  cow !  Sampson  bayed  like  thunder  and  raced  after 
Jim, 

"They're  off!"  I  yelled  to  R.  C.  "It's  a  hot  scent! 
Come  on!" 

We  spurred  our  horses  and  they  broke  across  the  open 
park  to  the  edge  of  the  woods.  Jim  and  Sampson  were 
running  straight  with  noses  high.  I  heard  a  string  of 
yelps  and  bellows  from  our  rear. 


50  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

"Look  back!"  shouted  R.  C. 

Teague  and  the  cowboys  were  unleashing  the  rest  of 
the  pack.  It  surely  was  great  to  see  them  stretch  out, 
yelping  wildly.  Like  the  wind  they  passed  us.  Jim  and 
Sampson  headed  into  the  woods  with  deep  bays.  I  was 
riding  Teague 's  best  horse  for  this  sort  of  work  and  he 
understood  the  game  and  plainly  enjoyed  it.  R.  C.'s 
horse  ran  as  fast  in  the  woods  as  he  did  in  the  open. 
This  frightened  me,  and  I  yelled  to  R.  C.  to  be  careful. 
I  yelled  to  deaf  ears.  That  is  the  first  great  risk — a 
rider  is  not  going  to  be  careful!  We  were  right  on 
top  of  Jim  and  Sampson  with  the  pack  clamoring  mad 
music  just  behind.  The  forest  rang.  Both  horses 
hurdled  logs,  sometimes  two  at  once.  My  old  lion 
chases  with  Buffalo  Jones  had  made  me  skillful  in 
dodging  branches  and  snags,  and  sliding  knees  back  to 
avoid  knocking  them  against  trees.  For  a  mUe  the  forest 
was  comparatively  open,  and  here  we  had  a  grand 
and  ringing  run.  I  received  two  hard  knocks,  was 
unseated  once,  but  held  on,  and  I  got  a  stinging  crack 
in  the  face  from  a  branch.  R.  C.  added  several  more 
black-and-blue  spots  to  his  already  spotted  anatomy, 
and  he  missed,  just  by  an  inch,  a  solid  snag  that  would 
have  broken  him  in  two.  The  pack  stretched  out  in 
wild  staccato  chorus,  the  little  Airedales  literally  screech- 
ing. Jim  got  out  of  our  sight  and  then  Sampson.  Still 
it  was  ever  more  thrilling  to  follow  by  sound  rather  than 
sight.  They  led  up  a  thick,  steep  slope.  Here  we  got 
into  trouble  in  the  windfalls  of  timber  and  the  pack  drew 
away  from  us,  up  over  the  mountain.  We  were  half  way 
up  when  we  heard  them  jump  the  bear.  The  forest 
seemed  full  of  strife  and  bays  and  yelps.  We  heard  the 
dogs  go  down  again  to  our  right,  and  as  we  turned  we 
saw  Teague  and  the  others  strung  out  along  the  edge  of 
the  park.     They  got  far  ahead  of  us.     When  we  reached 


COLORADO  TRAILS  51 

the  bottom  of  the  slope  they  were  out  of  sight,  but  we 
could  hear  them  yell.  The  hounds  were  working  around 
on  another  slope,  from  which  craggy  rocks  loomed  above 
the  timber.  R.  C.'s  horse  lunged  across  the  park  and 
appeared  to  be  running  off  from  mine.  I  was  a  little  to 
the  right,  and  when  my  horse  got  under  way,  full  speed, 
we  had  the  bad  luck  to  plunge  suddenly  into  soft  ground. 
He  went  to  his  knees,  and  I  sailed  out  of  the  saddle  fully 
twenty  feet,  to  alight  all  spread  out  and  to  slide  like  a 
plow.  I  did  not  seem  to  be  hurt.  When  I  got  up  my 
horse  was  coming  and  he  appeared  to  be  patient  with  me, 
but  he  was  in  a  hurry.  Before  we  got  across  the  wet 
place  R.  C.  was  out  of  sight.  I  decided  that  instead  of 
worrying  about  him  I  had  better  think  about  myself. 
Once  on  hard  ground  my  horse  fairly  charged  into  the 
woods  and  we  broke  brush  and  branches  as  if  they  had 
been  punk.  It  was  again  open  forest,  then  a  rocky  slope, 
and  then  a  flat  ridge  with  aisles  between  the  trees.  Here 
I  heard  the  melodious  notes  of  Teague's  hunting  horn, 
and  following  that,  the  full  chorus  of  the  hounds.  They 
had  treed  the  bear.  Coming  into  still  more  open  forest, 
with  rocks  here  and  there,  I  caught  sight  of  R.  C.  far 
ahead,  and  soon  I  had  glimpses  of  the  other  horses,  and 
lastly,  while  riding  full  tilt,  I  spied  a  big,  black,  glistening 
bear  high  up  in  a  pine  a  hundred  yards  or  more  distant. 

Slowing  down  I  rode  up  to  the  circle  of  frenzied  dogs 
and  excited  men.  The  boys  were  all  jabbering  at  once. 
Teague  was  beaming.  R.  C.  sat  his  horse,  and  it  struck 
me  that  he  looked  sorry  for  the  bear. 

"Fifteen  minutes!"  ejaculated  Teague,  with  a  proud 
glance  at  Old  Jim  standing  with  forepaws  up  on  the  pine. 

Indeed  it  had  been  a  short  and  ringing  chase. 

All  the  time  while  I  fooled  around  trying  to  photograph 
the  treed  bear,  R.  C.  sat  there  on  his  horse,  looking  up- 
ward. 


^2  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

"Well,  gentlemen,  better  kill  him,"  said  Teague, 
cheerfully.     "If  he  gets  rested  he'll  come  down." 

It  was  then  I  suggested  to  R,  C.  that  he  do  the 
shooting. 

"Not  much!"  he  exclaimed. 

The  bear  looked  really  pretty  perched  up  there.  He 
was  as  round  as  a  barrel  and  black  as  jet  and  his  fur 
shone  in  the  gleams  of  sunlight.  His  tongue  hung  out, 
and  his  plump  sides  heaved,  showing  what  a  quick,  hard 
run  he  had  made  before  being  driven  to  the  tree.  What 
struck  me  most  forcibly  about  him  was  the  expression  in 
his  eyes  as  he  looked  down  at  those  devils  of  hounds. 
He  was  scared.  He  realized  his  peril.  It  was  utterly 
impossible  for  me  to  see  Teague's  point  of  view. 

"Go  ahead — and  plug  him,"  I  replied  to  my  brother. 
"Get  it  over." 

"You  do  it,"  he  said. 

"No,  I  won't." 

"Why  not— I'd  like  to  know?" 

"Maybe  we  won't  have  so  good  a  chance  again — and 
I  want  you  to  get  your  bear,"  I  replied. 

"Why  it's  like — murder,"  he  protested. 

"Oh,  not  so  bad  as  that,"  I  returned,  weakly.  "We 
need  the  meat.  We've  not  had  any  game  meat,  you 
know,  except  ducks  and  grouse." 

"You  won't  do  it?"  he  added,  grimly. 

"No,  I  refuse." 

Meanwhile  the  young  ranchers  gazed  at  us  with  wide 
eyes  and  the  expression  on  Teague's  honest,  ruddy  face 
would  have  been  funny  under  other  circumstances. 

"That  bear  will  come  down  an'  mebbe  kill  one  of  my 
dogs,"  he  protested. 

"Well,  he  can  come  for  all  I  care,"  I  replied,  positively, 
and  I  turned  away. 

I  heard  R.  C.  curse  low  under  his  breath.     Then  fol- 


WHKkK    KOLl.S    THE    COLORADO 


COLORADO  TRAILS  53 

lowed  the  spang  of  his  .35  Remington.  I  wheeled  in  time 
to  see  the  bear  straining  upward  in  terrible  convulsion, 
his  head  pointed  high,  with  blood  spurting  from  his  nose. 
Slowly  he  swayed  and  fell  with  a  heavy  crash. 

The  next  bear  chase  we  had  was  entirely  different 
medicine. 

Off  in  the  basin  under  the  White  Slides,  back  of  our 
camp,  the  hounds  struck  a  fresh  track  and  in  an  instant 
were  out  of  sight.  With  the  cowboy  Vern  setting  the 
pace  we  plunged  after  them.  It  was  rough  country. 
Bogs,  brooks,  swales,  rocky  little  parks,  stretches  of 
timber  full  of  windfalls,  groves  of  aspens  so  thick  we  could 
scarcely  squeeze  through — all  these  obstacles  soon  al- 
lowed the  hounds  to  get  far  away.  We  came  out  into  a 
large  park,  right  under  the  mountain  slope,  and  here  we 
sat  our  horses  listening  to  the  chase.  That  trail  led 
around  the  basin  and  back  near  to  us,  up  the  thick  green 
slope,  where  high  up  near  a  ledge  we  heard  the  pack  jump 
this  bear.  It  sounded  to  us  as  if  he  had  been  roused  out 
of  a  sleep. 

"I'll  bet  it's  one  of  the  big  grizzlies  we've  heard  about," 
said  Teague. 

That  was  something  to  my  taste.  I  have  seen  a  few 
grizzlies.  Riding  to  higher  ground  I  kept  close  watch  on 
the  few  open  patches  up  on  the  slope.  The  chase  led 
toward  us  for  a  while.  Suddenly  I  saw  a  big  bear  with 
a  frosted  coat  go  lumbering  across  one  of  these  openings. 
"Silvertip!  Silvertip!"  I  yelled  at  the  top  of  my 
lungs.     ' '  I  saw  him ! ' ' 

My  call  thrilled  everybody.  Vern  spurred  his  horse 
and  took  to  the  right.  Teague  advised  that  we  climb 
the  slope.  So  we  made  for  the  timber.  Once  there  we 
had  to  get  off  and  climb  on  foot.  It  was  steep,  rough, 
very  hard  work.     I  had  on  chaps  and  spurs.     Soon  I  was 

hot,  laboring,  and  my  heart  began  to  hurt.     We  all  had 
5 


54  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

to  rest.  The  baying  of  the  hounds  inspirited  us  now  and 
then,  but  presently  we  lost  it.  Teague  said  they  had 
gone  over  the  ridge  and  as  soon  as  we  got  up  to  the  top 
we  would  hear  them  again.  We  struck  an  elk  trail  with 
fresh  elk  tracks  in  it.  Teague  said  they  were  just  ahead 
of  us.  I  never  climbed  so  hard  and  fast  in  my  life.  We 
were  all  tuckered  out  when  we  reached  the  top  of  the 
ridge.  Then  to  our  great  disappointment  w^e  did  not 
hear  the  hounds.  Mounting  we  rode  along  the  crest  of 
this  wooded  ridge  toward  the  western  end,  which  was 
considerably  higher.  Once  on  a  bare  patch  of  ground  w^e 
saw  where  the  grizzly  had  passed.  The  big,  round 
tracks,  toeing  in  a  little,  made  a  chill  go  over  me.  No 
doubt  of  its  being  a  silvertip ! 

We  climbed  and  rode  to  the  high  point,  and  coming 
out  upon  the  summit  of  the  mountain  we  all  heard  the 
deep,  hoarse  baying  of  the  pack.  They  were  in  the  can- 
yon down  a  bare  grassy  slope  and  over  a  wooded  bench 
at  our  feet.  Teague  yelled  as  he  spurred  down.  R.  C. 
rode  hard  in  his  tracks. 

But  my  horse  was  new  to  this  bear  chasing.  He  was 
mettlesome,  and  he  did  not  want  to  do  what  I  wanted. 
When  I  jabbed  the  spurs  into  his  flanks  he  nearly  bucked 
me  oJET.  I  was  looking  for  a  soft  place  to  light  when  he 
quit.  Long  before  I  got  down  that  open  slope  Teague 
and  R.  C.  had  disappeared.  I  had  to  follow  their  tracks. 
This  I  did  at  a  gallop,  but  now  and  then  lost  the  tracks, 
and  had  to  haul  in  to  find  them.  If  I  could  have  heard 
the  hounds  from  there  I  would  have  gone  on  an3rway. 
But  once  down  in  the  jack-pines  I  could  hear  neither  yell 
or  bay.  The  pines  were  small,  close  together,  and  tough. 
I  hurt  my  hands,  scratched  my  face,  barked  my  knees. 
The  horse  had  a  habit  of  suddenly  deciding  to  go  the  way 
he  liked  instead  of  the  way  I  guided  him,  and  when  he 
plunged  between  saplings  too  close  together  to  permit 


COLORADO  TRAILS  55 

us  both  to  go  through,  it  was  exceedingly  hard  on  me. 
I  was  worked  into  a  frenzy.  Suppose  R.  C.  should  come 
face  to  face  with  that  old  grizzly  and  fail  to  kill  him! 
That  was  the  reason  for  my  desperate  hurry.  I  got  a 
crack  on  the  head  that  nearly  blinded  me.  My  horse 
grew  hot  and  began  to  run  in  every  little  open  space. 
He  could  scarcely  be  held  in.  And  I,  with  the  blood  hot 
in  me  too,  did  not  hold  him  hard  enough. 

It  seemed  miles  across  that  wooded  bench.  But  at 
last  I  reached  another  slope.  Coming  out  upon  a  canyon 
rim  I  heard  R.  C.  and  Teague  yelling,  and  I  heard  the 
hounds  fighting  the  grizzly.  He  was  growling  and 
threshing  about  far  below.  I  had  missed  the  tracks 
made  by  Teague  and  my  brother,  and  it  was  necessary 
to  find  them.  That  slope  looked  impassable.  I  rode 
back  along  the  rim,  then  forward.  Finally  I  found 
where  the  ground  was  plowed  deep  and  here  I  headed  my 
horse.  He  had  been  used  to  smooth  roads  and  he  could 
not  take  these  jumps.  I  went  forward  on  his  neck.  But 
I  hung  on  and  spurred  him  hard.  The  mad  spirit  of 
that  chase  had  gotten  into  him  too.  All  the  time  I  could 
hear  the  fierce  baying  and  yelping  of  the  hounds,  and 
occasionally  I  heard  a  savage  bawl  from  the  bear.  I 
literally  plunged,  slid,  broke  a  way  down  that  mountain 
slope,  riding  all  the  time,  before  I  discovered  the  foot- 
prints of  Teague  and  R.  C.  They  had  walked,  leading 
their  horses.  By  this  time  I  was  so  mad  I  would  not  get 
off.  I  rode  all  the  way  down  that  steep  slope  of  dense 
saplings,  loose  rock  slides  and  earth,  and  jumble  of 
splintered  cliff.  That  he  did  not  break  my  neck  and  his 
own  spoke  the  truth  about  that  roan  horse.  Despite  his 
inexperience  he  was  great.  We  fell  over  one  bank,  but 
a  thicket  of  aspens  saved  us  from  rolling.  The  ava- 
lanches slid  from  under  us  until  I  imagined  that  the 
grizzly  would  be  scared.     Once  as  I  stopped  to  listen  I 


56  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

heard  bear  and  pack  farther  down. the  canyon — ^heard 
them  above  the  roar  of  a  rushing  stream.  They  went  on 
and  I  lost  the  sounds  of  fight.  But  R.  C.!s"  clear  thrilling 
call  floated  up  to  me.    Probably  he  was  worried  about  me. 

Then  before  I  realized  it  I  was  at  the  foot  of  the  slope, 
in  a  narrow  canyon  bed,  full  of  rocks  and  trees,  with  the  din 
of  roaring  water  in  my  ears.  I  could  hear  nothing  else. 
Tracks  were  everywhere,  and  when  I  came  to  the  first  open 
place  I  was  thrilled.  The  grizzly  had  plunged  off  a  sandy 
bar  into  the  water,  and  there  he  had  fought  the  hounds. 
Signs  of  that  battle  were  easy  to  read.  I  saw  where  his 
huge  tracks,  still  wet,  led  up  the  opposite  sandy  bank. 

Then,  down  stream,  I  did  my  most  reckless  riding.  On 
level  ground  the  horse  was  splendid.  Once  he  leaped  clear 
across  the  brook.  Every  plunge,  every  turn  I  expected 
to  bring  me  upon  my  brother  and  Teague  and  that  fight- 
ing pack.  More  than  once  I  thought  I  heard  the  spang 
of  the  .35  and  this  made  me  urge  the  roan  faster  and  faster. 

The  canyon  narrowed,  the  stream-bed  deepened.  I 
had  to  slow  down  to  get  through  the  trees  and  rocks. 
And  suddenly  I  was  overjoyed  to  ride  pell-mell  upon 
R.  C.  and  Teague  with  half  the  panting  hounds.  The 
canyon  had  grown  too  rough  for  the  horses  to  go  farther 
and  it  would  have  been  useless  for  us  to  try  on  foot.  As 
I  dismounted,  so  sore  and  bruised  I  could  hardly  stand, 
old  Jim  came  limping  in  to  fall  into  the  brook  where  he 
lapped  and  lapped  thirstily.  Teague  threw  up  his  hands. 
Old  Jim's  return  meant  an  ended  chase.  The  grizzly  had 
eluded  the  hounds  in  that  jumble  of  rocks  below. 

"Say,  did  you  meet  the  bear?"  queried  Teague,  eyeing 
me  in  astonishment  and  mirth. 

Bloody,  dirty,  ragged  and  wringing  wet  with  sweat  I 
must  have  been  a  sight.  R.  C.  however,  did  not  look  so 
very  immaculate,  and  when  I  saw  he  also  was  lame  and 
scratched  and  black  I  felt  better. 


CHAPTER  III 

ROPING  LIONS  IN  THE  GRAND  CANYON 


THE  Grand  Canyon  of  Arizona  is  over  two  hundred 
miles  long,  thirteen  wide,  and  a  mile  and  a  half  deep ; 
a  titanic  gorge  in  which  mountains,  tablelands,  chasms 
and  cliffs  lie  half  veiled  in  purple  haze.  It  is  wild  and 
sublime,  a  thing  of  wonder,  of  mystery;  beyond  all 
else  a  place  to  grip  the  heart  of  a  man,  to  unleash  his 
daring  spirit. 

On  April  20th,  1908,  after  days  on  the  hot  desert,  my 
weary  party  and  pack  train  reached  the  summit  of 
Powell's  Plateau,  the  most  isolated,  inaccessible  and  re- 
markable mesa  of  any  size  in  all  the  canyon  country. 
Cut  off  from  the  mainland  it  appeared  insurmountable; 
standing  aloof  from  the  towers  and  escarpments,  rugged 
and  bold  in  outline,  its  forest  covering  like  a  strip  of 
black  velvet,  its  giant  granite  walls  gold  in  the  sun,  it 
seemed  apart  from  the  world,  haunting  with  its  beauty, 
isolation  and  wild  promise. 

The  members  of  my  party  harmoniously  fitted  the 
scene.  Buffalo  Jones,  burly-shouldered,  bronze-faced, 
and  grim,  proved  in  his  appearance  what  a  lifetime  on 
the' plains  could  make  of  a  man.  Emett  was  a  Mormon, 
a  massively  built  grey-bearded  son  of  the  desert ;  he  had 
lived  his  life  on  it ;  he  had  conquered  it  and  in  his  falcon 
eyes  shone  all  its  fire  and  freedom.  Ranger  Jim  Owens 
had  the  wiry,  supple  body  and  careless,  tidy  garb  of  the 
cowboy,  and  the  watchful  gaze,  quiet  face  and  locked 

57 


S8  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

lips  of  the  frontiersman.  The  fourth  member  was  a 
Navajo  Indian,  a  copper-skinned,  raven-haired,  beady- 
eyed  desert  savage. 

I  had  told  Emett  to  hire  some  one  who  could  put  the 
horses  on  grass  in  the  evening  and  then  find  them  the 
next  morning.  In  northern  Arizona  this  required  more 
than  genius.  Emett  secured  the  best  trailer  of  the  desert 
Navajos.  Jones  hated  an  Indian;  and  Jim,  who  car- 
ried an  ounce  of  lead  somewhere  in  his  person,  associated 
this  painful  addition  to  his  weight  with  an  unfriendly 
Apache,  and  swore  all  Indians  should  be  dead.  So 
between  the  two,  Emett  and  I  had  trouble  in  keeping 
our  Navajo  from  illustrating  the  plainsman  idea  of  a 
really  good  Indian — a  dead  one. 

While  we  were  pitching  camp  among  magnificent  pine 
trees,  and  above  a  hollow  where  a  heavy  bank  of  snow 
still  lay,  a  sodden  pounding  in  the  turf  attracted  our 
attention. 

"Hold  the  horses!"  yelled  Emett. 

As  we  all  made  a  dive  among  our  snorting  and  plung- 
ing horses  the  sound  seemed  to  be  coming  right  into 
camp.  In  a  moment  I  saw  a  string  of  wild  horses  thun- 
dering by.  A  noble  black  stallion  led  them,  and  as  he 
ran  with  beautiful  stride  he  curved  his  fine  head  back- 
ward to  look  at  us,  and  whistled  his  wild  challenge. 

Later  a  herd  of  large  white-tailed  deer  trooped  up  the 
hollow.  The  Navajo  grew  much  excited  and  wanted  me 
to  shoot,  and  when  Emett  told  him  we  had  not  come  out 
to  kill,  he  looked  dumbfounded.  Even  the  Indian  felt 
it  a  strange  departure  from  the  usual  mode  of  hunting 
to  travel  and  climb  hundreds  of  miles  over  hot  desert  and 
rock-ribbed  canyons,  to  camp  at  last  in  a  spot  so  wild 
that  deer  were  tame  as  cattle,  and  then  not  kill. 

Nothing  could  have  pleased  me  better,  incident  to  the 
settling  into  permanent  camp.     The  wild  horses    and 


ROPING  LIONS  IN  THE  GRAND  CANYON      59 

tame  deer  added  the  all-satisfying  touch  to  the  back- 
ground of  forest,  flowers  and  mighty  pines  and  sunlit 
patches  of  grass,  the  white  tents  and  red  blankets,  the 
sleeping  hounds  and  blazing  fire-logs  all  making  a  pic- 
ture like  that  of  a  hunter's  dream. 

"Come,  saddle  up,"  called  the  never  restful  Jones. 
"Leave  the  Indian  in  camp  with  the  hounds,  and  we'll 
get  the  lay  of  the  land."  All  afternoon  we  spent  riding 
the  plateau.  What  a  wonderful  place!  We  were  com- 
pletely bewildered  with  its  physical  properties,  and  sur- 
prised at  the  abundance  of  wild  horses  and  mustangs, 
deer,  coyotes,  foxes,  grouse  and  other  birds,  and  over- 
joyed to  find  innumerable  lion  trails.  When  we  re- 
turned to  camp  I  drew  a  rough  map,  which  Jones  laid 
flat  on  the  ground  as  he  called  us  around  him. 

"Now,  boys,  let's  get  our  heads  together." 

In  shape  the  plateau  resembled  the  ace  of  clubs.  The 
center  and  side  wings  were  high  and  well  wooded  with 
heavy  pines;  the  middle  wing  was  longest,  sloped  west, 
had  no  pine,  but  a  dense  growth  of  cedar.  Numerous 
ridges  and  canyons  cut  up  this  central  wing.  Middle 
Canyon,  the  longest  and  deepest,  bisected  the  plateau, 
headed  near  camp,  and  ran  parallel  with  two  smaller 
ones,  which  we  named  Right  and  Left  Can^^ons.  These 
three  were  lion  runways  and  hundreds  of  deer  carcasses 
lined  the  thickets.  North  Hollow  was  the  only  depres- 
sion, as  well  as  runway,  on  the  northwest  rim.  West 
Point  formed  the  extreme  western  cape  of  the  plateau. 
To  the  left  of  West  Point  was  a  deep  cut-in  of  the  rim 
wall,  called  the  Bay.  The  three  important  canyons 
opened  into  it.  From  the  Bay,  the  south  rim  was  regu- 
lar and  impassable  all  the  way  round  to  the  narrow  Sad- 
dle, which  connected  it  to  the  mainland. 

"Now  then,"  said  Jones,  when  we  assured  him  that 
we  were  pretty  well  informed  as  to  the  important  fea- 


6o  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

tures,  "you  can  readily  see  our  advantage.  The  plateau 
is  about  nine  or  ten  miles  long,  and  six  wide  at  its  widest. 
We  can't  get  lost,  at  least  for  long.  We  know  where 
lions  can  go  over  the  rim  and  we'll  head  them  off,  make 
short  cut  chases,  something  new  in  lion  hunting.  We 
are  positive  the  lions  can  not  get  over  the  second  wall, 
except  where  we  came  up,  at  the  Saddle.  In  regard  to 
lion  signs,  I'm  doubtful  of  the  evidence  of  my  own  eyes. 
This  is  virgin  ground.  No  white  man  or  Indian  has 
ever  hunted  lions  here.  We  have  stumbled  on  a  lion 
home,  the  breeding  place  of  hundreds  of  lions  that  infest 
the  north  rim  of  the  canyon." 

The  old  plainsman  struck  a  big  fist  into  the  palm  of 
his  hand,  a  rare  action  with  him.  Jim  lifted  his  broad 
hat  and  ran  his  fingers  through  his  white  hair.  In 
Emett's  clear  desert-eagle  eyes  shown  a  furtive,  anxious 
look,  which  yet  could  not  overshadow  the  smouldering 
fire. 

"If  only  we  don't  kill  the  horses!"  he  said. 

More  than  anything  else  that  remark  from  such  a  man 
thrilled  me  with  its  subtle  suggestion.  He  loved  those 
beautiful  horses.  What  wild  rides  he  saw  in  his  mind's 
eye !  In  cold  calculation  we  perceived  the  wonderful  pos- 
sibilities never  before  experienced  by  hunters,  and  as  the 
wild  spell  clutched  us  my  last  bar  of  restraint  let  down. 

During  supper  we  talked  incessantly,  and  afterward 
around  the  camp-fire.  Twilight  fell  with  the  dark  shad- 
ows sweeping  under  the  silent  pines;  the  night  wind 
rose  and  began  its  moan. 

"Shore  there's  some  scent  on  the  wind,"  said  Jim, 
lighting  his  pipe  with  a  red  ember.  "See  how  oneasy 
Don  is." 

The  hound  raised  his  fine,  dark  head  and  repeatedly 
sniffed  the  air,  then  walked  to  and  fro  as  if  on  guard 
for  his  pack.     Moze  ground  his  teeth  on  a  bone  and 


ROPING  LIONS  IN  THE  GRAND  CANYON      6i 

growled  at  one  of  the  pups.    Sounder  was  sleepy,  but  he 
watched  Don  with  suspicious  eyes.     The  other  hounds, 
mature  and  somber,  lay  stretched  before  the  fire. 
"Tie  them  up,  Jim,"  said  Jones,  "and  let's  turn  in. 


>» 


II 

When  I  awakened  next  morning  the  sound  of  Emett's 
axe  rang  out  sharply.  Little  streaks  of  light  from  the 
camp-fire  played  between  the  flaps  of  the  tent.  I  saw 
old  Moze  get  up  and  stretch  himself.  A  jangle  of  cow- 
bells from  the  forest  told  me  we  would  not  have  to  wait 
for  the  horses  that  morning. 

"The  Injun's  all  right,"  Jones  remarked  to  Emett. 

"All  rustle  for  breakfast,"  called  Jim. 

We  ate  in  the  semi-darkness  with  the  gray  shadow 
ever  brightening.  Dawn  broke  as  we  saddled  our  horses. 
The  pups  were  limber,  and  ran  to  and  fro  on  their  chains, 
scenting  the  air ;  the  older  hounds  stood  quietly  waiting. 

"Come  Navvy — come  chase  cougie,"  said  Emett. 

"Dam!     No!"  replied  the  Indian. 

*'Let  him  keep  camp,"  suggested  Jim. 

"All  right;   but  he'll  eat  us  out,"  Emett  declared. 

"Climb  up  you  fellows,"  said  Jones,  impatiently. 
"Have  I  got  everything — rope,  chains,  collars,  wire,  nip- 
pers? Yes,  all  right.  Hyar,  you  lazy  dogs — out  of 
this!" 

We  rode  abreast  down  the  ridge.  The  demeanor  of 
the  hounds  contrasted  sharply  with  what  it  had  been 
at  the  start  of  the  hunt  the  year  before.  Then  they 
had  been  eager,  uncertain,  violent;  they  did  not  know 
what  was  in  the  air;  now  they  filed  after  Don  in  an 
orderly  trot. 

We  struck  out  of  the  pines  at  half  past  five.  Float- 
ing mist  hid  the  lower  end  of  the  plateau.     The  morning 


62  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

had  a  cool  touch  but  there  was  no  frost.  Crossing  Mid- 
dle Canyon  about  half  way  down  we  jogged  on.  Cedar 
trees  began  to  show  bright  green  against  the  soft  gray 
sage.  We  were  nearing  the  dark  line  of  the  cedar  forest 
when  Jim,  who  led,  held  up  his  hand  in  a  warning  check. 
We  closed  in  around  him. 

"Watch  Don,"  he  said. 

The  hound  stood  stiff,  head  well  up,  nose  working, 
and  the  hair  on  his  back  bristling.  All  the  other  hounds 
whined  and  kept  close  to  him. 

"Don  scents  a  lion,"  whispered  Jim.  "I've  never 
known  him  to  do  that  unless  there  was  the  scent  of  a 
lion  on  the  wind." 

"Hunt  'em  up  Don,  old  boy,"  called  Jones. 

The  pack  commenced  to  work  back  and  forth  along 
the  ridge.  We  neared  a  hollow  when  Don  barked  eagerly. 
Sounder  answered  and  likewise  Jude.  Moze's  short  angry 
"bow-wow"  showed  the  old  gladiator  to  be  in  line. 

"Ranger's  gone,"  cried  Jim.  "He  was  farthest 
ahead.  I'll  bet  he's  struck  it.  We'll  know  in  a  minute, 
for  we're  close." 

The  hounds  were  tearing  through  the  sage,  working 
harder  and  harder,  calling  and  answering  one  another, 
all  the  time  getting  down  into  the  hollow. 

Don  suddenly  let  out  a  string  of  yelps.  I  saw  him, 
running  head  up,  pass  into  the  cedars  like  a  yellow 
dart.  Sounder  howled  his  deep,  full  bay,  and  led  the 
rest  of  the  pack  up  the  slope  in  angry  clamor. 

"They're  off!"  yelled  Jim,  and  so  were  we. 

In  less  than  a  minute  we  had  lost  one  another.  Crash- 
ings  among  the  dry  cedars,  thud  of  hoofs  and  yells  kept 
me  going  in  one  direction.  The  fiery  burst  of  the  hounds 
had  surprised  me.  I  remembered  that  Jim  had  said 
Emett  and  his  charger  might  keep  the  pack  in  sight, 
but  that  none  of  the  rest  of  us  could. 


ROPING  LIONS  IN  THE  GRAND  CANYON      63 

It  did  not  take  me  long  to  realize  what  my  mustang 
was  made  of.  His  name  was  Foxie,  which  suited  him 
well.  He  carried  me  at  a  fast  pace  on  the  trail  of  some 
one;  and  he  seemed  to  know  that  by  keeping  in  this 
trail  part  of  the  work  of  breaking  through  the  brush 
was  already  done  for  him.  Nevertheless,  the  sharp 
dead  branches,  more  numerous  in  a  cedar  forest  than 
elsewhere,  struck  and  stung  us  as  we  passed.  We 
climbed  a  ridge,  and  found  the  cedars  thinning  out  into 
open  patches.  Then  we  faced  a  bare  slope  of  sage  and 
I  saw  Emett  below  on  his  big  horse. 

Foxie  bolted  down  this  slope,  hurdling  the  bunches 
of  sage,  and  showing  the  speed  of  which  Emett  had 
boasted.  The  open  ground,  with  its  brush,  rock  and 
gullies,  was  easy  going  for  the  little  mustang.  I  heard 
nothing  save  the  wind  singing  in  my  ears.  Emett's 
trail,  plain  in  the  yellow  ground  showed  me  the  way. 
On  entering  the  cedars  again  I  pulled  Foxie  in  and 
stopped  twice  to  yell  "waa-hoo!"  I  heard  the  bay- 
ing of  the  hounds,  but  no  answer  to  my  signal.  Then 
I  attended  to  the  stern  business  of  catching  up.  For 
what  seemed  a  long  time,  I  threaded  the  maze  of 
cedar,  galloped  the  open  sage  fiats,  always  on  Emett's 
track. 

A  signal  cry,  sharp  to  the  right,  turned  me.  I  an- 
swered, and  with  the  exchange  of  signal  cries  found  my 
way  into  an  open  glade  where  Jones  and  Jim  awaited  me. 

"Here's  one,"  said  Jim.  "Emett  must  be  with  the 
hounds.     Listen." 

With  the  labored  breathing  of  the  horses  filling  our 
ears  we  could  hear  no  other  sound.  Dismounting,  I 
went  aside  and  turned  my  ear  to  the  breeze. 

"I  hear  Don,"  I  cried  instantly. 

"Which  way?"  both  men  asked. 

"West." 


64  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

"Strange,"  said  Jones.  "The  hound  wouldn't  split, 
would  he,  Jim?" 

"Don  leave  that  hot  trail?  Shore  he  wouldn't," 
replied  Jim.  "  But  his  runnin'  do  seem  queer  this  morn- 
ing." 

"The  breeze  is  freshening,"  I  said.  "There!  Now 
listen!     Don,  and  Sounder,  too." 

The  baying  came  closer  and  closer.  Our  horses  threw 
up  long  ears.  It  was  hard  to  sit  still  and  wait.  At  a 
quick  cry  from  Jim  we  saw  Don  cross  the  lower  end  of 
the  flat. 

No  need  to  spur  our  mounts!  The  lifting  of  bridles 
served,  and  away  we  raced.  Foxie  passed  the  others 
in  short  order.  Don  had  long  disappeared,  but  with 
blended  bays,  Jude,  Moze,  and  Sounder  broke  out  of  the 
cedars  hot  on  the  trail.  They,  too,  were  out  of  sight  in 
a  moment. 

The  crash  of  breaking  brush  and  thunder  of  hoofs 
from  where  the  hounds  had  come  out  of  the  forest, 
attracted  and  even  frightened  me.  I  saw  the  green  of  a 
low  cedar  tree  shake,  and  split,  to  let  out  a  huge,  gaunt 
horse  with  a  big  man  doubled  over  his  saddle.  The 
onslaught  of  Emett  and  his  desert  charger  stirred  a  fear 
in  me  that  checked  admiration. 

"Hounds  running  wild,"  he  yelled,  and  the  dark  shad- 
ows of  the  cedars  claimed  him  again. 

A  hundred  yards  within  the  forest  we  came  again 
upon  Emett,  dismounted,  searching  the  ground.  Moze 
and  Sounder  were  with  him,  apparently  at  fault.  Sud- 
denly Moze  left  the  little  glade  and  venting  his  sullen, 
quick  bark,  disappeared  under  the  trees.  Sounder  sat 
on  his  haunches  and  yelped. 

"Now  what  the  hell  is  wrong?"  growled  Jones  tum- 
Ijling  off  his  saddle. 

"Shore  something  is,"  said  Jim,  also  dismounting. 


ROPING  LIONS  IN  THE  GRAND  CANYON      65 

"Here's  a  lion  track,"  interposed  Emett. 

"Ha!  and  here's  another,"  cried  Jones,  in  great  satis- 
faction, ' '  That's  the  trail  we  were  on,  and  here's  another 
crossing  it  at  right  angles.  Both  are  fresh:  one  isn't 
fifteen  minutes  old.  Don  and  Jude  have  split  one  way 
and  Moze  another.  By  George!  that's  great  of  Sounder 
to  hang  fire!" 

"Put  him  on  the  fresh  trail,"  said  Jim,  vaulting  into 
his  saddle. 

Jones  complied,  with  the  result  that  we  saw  Sounder 
start  off  on  the  trail  Moze  had  taken.  All  of  us  got  in 
some  pretty  hard  riding,  and  managed  to  stay  within 
earshot  of  Sounder.  We  crossed  a  canyon,  and  pres- 
ently reached  another  which,  from  its  depth,  must  have 
been  Middle  Canyon.  Sounder  did  not  climb  the  oppo- 
site slope,  so  we  followed  the  rim.  From  a  bare  ridge 
we  distinguished  the  line  of  pines  above  us,  and  decided 
that  our  location  was  in  about  the  center  of  the  plateau. 

Very  little  time  elapsed  before  we  heard  Moze.  Soun- 
der had  caught  up  with  him.  We  came  to  a  halt  where 
the  canyon  widened  and  was  not  so  deep,  with  cliffs  and 
cedars  opposite  us,  and  an  easy  slope  leading  down. 
Sounder  bayed  incessantly;  Moze  emitted  harsh,  eager 
howls,  and  both  hounds,  in  plain  sight,  began  working 
in  circles. 

"The  lion  has  gone  up  somewhere,"  cried  Jim. 
"Look  sharp!" 

Repeatedly  Moze  worked  to  the  edge  of  a  low  wall  of 
stone  and  looked  over;  then  he  barked  and  ran  back  to 
the  slope,  only  to  return.  When  I  saw  him  slide  down 
a  steep  place,  make  for  the  bottom  of  the  stone  wall, 
and  jump  into  the  low  branches  of  a  cedar  I  knew  where 
to  look.  Then  I  descried  the  lion  a  round  yellow  ball, 
cunningly  curled  up  in  a  mass  of  dark  branches.  He 
had  leaped  into  the  tree  from  the  wall. 


66  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

"There  he  is!  Treed!  Treed!"  I  yelled.  "Moze 
has  found  him." 

"Down  boys,  down  into  the  canyon,"  shouted  Jones, 
in  sharp  voice.  "Make  a  racket,  we  don't  want  him  to 
jump." 

How  he  and  Jim  and  Emett  rolled  and  cracked  the 
stone!  For  a  moment  I  could  not  get  off  my  horse; 
I  was  chained  to  my  saddle  by  a  strange  vacillation  that 
could  have  been  no  other  thing  than  fear. 

"Are  you  afraid?"  called  Jones  from  below. 

"Yes,  but  I  am  coming,"  I  replied,  and  dismounted 
to  plunge  down  the  hill.  It  may  have  been  shame  or 
anger  that  dominated  me  then ;  whatever  it  was  I  made 
directly  for  the  cedar,  and  did  not  halt  until  I  was  under 
the  snarling  lion. 

"Not  too  close!"  warned  Jones.  "He  might  jump. 
It's  a  Tom,  a  two-year-old,  and  full  of  fight." 

It  did  not  matter  to  me  then  whether  he  jumped  or 
not.  I  knew  I  had  to  be  cured  of  my  dread,  and  the 
sooner  it  was  done  the  better. 

Old  Moze  had  already  climbed  a  third  of  the  distance 
up  to  the  lion. 

"  Hyar  Moze !  Out  of  there,  you  rascal  coon  chaser ! " 
Jones  yelled  as  he  threw  stones  and  sticks  at  the  hound. 
Moze,  however,  replied  with  his  snarly  bark  and  clim.bed 
on  steadily. 

"I've  got  to  pull  him  out.  Watch  close  boys  and  tell 
me  if  the  lion  starts  down." 

When  Jones  climbed  the  first  few  branches  of  the  tree, 
Tom  let  out  an  ominous  growl. 

"Make  ready  to  jump.     Shore  he's  comin',"  called  Jim. 

The  lion,  snarling  viciously,  started  to  descend.  It 
was  a  ticklish  moment  for  all  of  us,  particularly  Jones. 
Warily  he  backed  down. 

"Boys,  maybe  he's  bluffing,"  said  Jones.     "Try  him 


ROPING  LIONS  IN  THE  GRAND  CANYON      (^-j 

out.  Grab  sticks  and  run  at  the  tree  and  yell,  as  if  you 
were  going  to  kill  him." 

Not  improbably  the  demonstration  we  executed  un- 
der the  tree  would  have  frightened  even  an  African  lion. 
Tom  hesitated,  showed  his  white  fangs,  returned  to  his 
first  perch,  and  from  there  climbed  as  far  as  he  could. 
The  forked  branch  on  which  he  stood  swayed  alarm- 
ingly. 

"Here,  punch  Moze  out,"  said  Jim  handing  up  a  long 
pole. 

The  old  hound  hung  like  a  leech  to  the  tree,  making  it 
difficult  to  dislodge  him.  At  length  he  fell  heavily,  and 
venting  his  thick  battle  cry,  attempted  to  climb  again. 

Jim  seized  him,  made  him  fast  to  the  rope  with  which 
Sounder  had  already  been  tied. 

"Say  Emett,  I've  no  chance  here,"  called  Jones. 
"You  try  to  throw  at  him  from  the  rock." 

Emett  ran  up  the  rock,  coiled  his  lasso  and  cast  the 
noose.  It  sailed  perfectly  in  between  the  branches  and 
circled  Tom's  head.  Before  it  could  be  slipped  tight  he 
had  thrown  it  off.     Then  he  hid  behind  the  branches. 

"I'm  going  farther  up,"  said  Jones. 

"Be  quick,"  yelled  Jim. 

Jones  evidently  had  that  in  mind.  When  he  reached 
the  middle  fork  of  the  cedar,  he  stood  erect  and  extended 
the  noose  of  his  lasso  on  the  point  of  his  pole.  Tom, 
with  a  hiss  and  snap,  struck  at  it  savagely.  The  second 
trial  tempted  the  lion  to  saw  the  rope  with  his  teeth. 
In  a  flash  Jones  withdrew  the  pole,  and  lifted  a  loop  of 
the  slack  rope  over  the  lion's  ears. 

"Pull!  "he  yelled. 

Emett,  at  the  other  end  of  the  lasso,  threw  his  great 
strength  into  action,  pulling  the  lion  out  with  a  crash, 
and  giving  the  cedar  such  a  tremendous  shaking  that 
Jones  lost  his  footing  and  fell  heavily. 


68  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

Thrilling  as  the  moment  was,  I  had  to  laugh,  for 
Jones  came  up  out  of  a  cloud  of  dust,  as  angry  as  a  wet 
hornet,  and  made  prodigious  leaps  to  get  out  of  the 
reach  of  the  whirling  lion. 

"Look  out! !"  he  bawled. 

Tom,  certainly  none  the  worse  for  his  tumble,  made 
three  leaps,  two  at  Jones,  one  at  Jim,  which  was  checked 
by  the  short  length  of  the  rope  in  Emett's  hands.  Then 
for  a  moment,  a  thick  cloud  of  dust  enveloped  the  wrest- 
ling lion,  during  which  the  quick-witted  Jones  tied  the 
free  end  of  the  lasso  to  a  sapling. 

' '  Dod  gast  the  luck ! "  yelled  Jones  reaching  for  another 
lasso.  "I  didn't  mean  for  you  to  pull  him  out  of  the 
tree.     Now  he'll  get  loose  or  kill  himself." 

When  the  dust  cleared  away,  we  discovered  our  prize 
stretched  out  at  full  length  and  frothing  at  the  mouth. 
As  Jones  approached,  the  lion  began  a  series  of  evolutions 
so  rapid  as  to  be  almost  indiscernible  to  the  eye.  I  saw 
a  wheel  of  dust  and  yellow  fur.  Then  came  a  thud  and 
the  lion  lay  inert. 

Jones  pounced  upon  him  and  loosed  the  lasso  around 
his  neck. 

"I  think  he's  done  for,  but  maybe  not.  He's  breath- 
ing yet.  Here,  help  me  tie  his  paws  together.  Look  out ! 
He's  coming  to!" 

The  lion  stirred  and  raised  his  head.  Jones  ran  the 
loop  of  the  second  lasso  around  the  two  hind  paws  and 
stretched  the  lion  out.  While  in  this  helpless  position 
and  with  no  strength  and  hardly  any  breath  left  in  him 
the  lion  was  easy  to  handle.  With  Emett's  help  Jones 
quickly  clipped  the  sharp  claws,  tied  the  four  paws 
together,  took  off  the  neck  lasso  and  substituted  a  collar 
and  chain. 

"There,  that's  one.  He'll  come  to  all  right,"  said 
Jones.     ' '  But  we  are  lucky.     Emett,  never  pull  another 


DOWN   THE    SHINUMO   TRAIL    OF   THE    NORTH    RIVER 


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ROPING  LIONS  IN  THE  GRAND  CANYON      69 

lion  clear  out  of  a  tree.  Pull  him  over  a  limb  and  hang 
him  there  while  some  one  below  ropes  his  hind  paws. 
That's  the  only  way,  and  if  we  don't  stick  to  it,  somebody 
is  going  to  get  done  for.  Come,  now,  we'll  leave  this 
fellow  here  and  hunt  up  Don  and  Jude.  They've  treed 
another  lion  by  this  time." 

Remarkable  to  me  was  to  see  how,  as  soon  as  the  lion 
lay  helpless,  Sounder  lost  his  interest.  Moze  growled,  yet 
readily  left  the  spot.  Before  we  reached  the  level,  both 
hounds  had  disappeared. 

' '  Hear  that  ? "  yelled  Jones,  digging  spurs  into  his  horse. 
"Hi!  Hi!  Hi!" 

From  the  cedars  rang  the  thrilling,  blending  chorus  of 
bays  that  told  of  a  treed  lion.  The  forest  was  almost 
impenetrable.  We  had  to  pick  our  way.  Emett  forged 
ahead ;  we  heard  him  smashing  the  deadwood ;  and  soon 
a  yell  proclaimed  the  truth  of  Jones'  assertion. 

First  I  saw  the  men  looking  upward;  then  Moze 
climbing  the  cedar,  and  the  other  hounds  with  noses 
skyward ;  and  last,  in  the  dead  top  of  the  tree,  a  dark  blot 
against  the  blue,  a  big  tawny  lion, 

"Whoop!"  The  yell  leaped  past  my  lips.  Quiet  Jim 
was  yelling;  and  1  Emett,  silent  man  of  the  desert,  let 
from  his  wide  cavernous  chest  a  booming  roar  that 
drowned  ours. 

Jones'  next  decisive  action  turned  us  from  exultation 

to  the  grim  business  of  the  thing.     He  pulled  Moze  out 

of  the  cedar,  and  while  he  climbed  up,  Emett  ran  his  rope 

under  the  collars  of  all  of  the  hounds.     Quick  as  the  idea 

flashed  over  me  I  leaped  into  the  cedar  adjoining  the  one 

Jones  was  in,  and  went  up  hand  over  hand.     A  few  pulls 

brought  me  to  the  top,  and  then  my  blood  ran  hot  and 

quick,  for  I  was  level  with  the  lion,  too  close  for  comfort, 

but  in  excellent  position  for  taking  pictures. 

The  lion,  not  heeding  me,  peered  down  at  Jones,  be- 
6 


70  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

tween  widespread  paws.  I  could  hear  nothing  except 
the  hounds.  Jones'  gray  hat  came  pushing  up  between 
the  dead  snags ;  then  his  burly  shoulders.  The  quivering 
muscles  of  the  lion  gathered  tense,  and  his  lithe  body 
crouched  low  on  the  branches.  He  was  about  to  jump. 
His  open  dripping  jaws,  his  wild  eyes,  roving  in  terror 
for  some  means  of  escape,  his  tufted  tail,  swinging  against 
the  twigs  and  breaking  them,  manifested  his  extremity. 
The  eager  hounds  waited  below,  howling,  leaping. 

It  bothered  me  considerably  to  keep  my  balance,  regu- 
late my  camera  and  watch  the  proceedings.  Jones 
climbed  on  with  his  rope  between  his  teeth,  and  a  long 
stick.  The  very  next  instant  it  seemed  to  me,  I  heard 
the  cracking  of  branches  and  saw  the  lion  biting  hard  at 
the  noose  which  circled  his  neck. 

Here  I  swung  down,  branch  to  branch,  and  dropped  to 
the  ground,  for  I  wanted  to  see  what  went  on  below. 
Above  the  howls  and  yelps,  I  distinguished  Jones'  yell. 
Emett  ran  directly  under  the  lion  with  a  spread  noose  in 
his  hands.  Jones  pulled  and  pulled,  but  the  lion  held  on 
firmly.  Throwing  the  end  of  the  lasso  down  to  Jim, 
Jones  yelled  again,  and  then  they  both  pulled.  The  lion 
was  too  strong.  Suddenly,  however,  the  branch  broke, 
letting  the  lion  fall,  kicking  frantically  with  all  four  paws. 
Emett  grasped  one  of  the  four  whipping  paws,  and  even 
as  the  powerful  animal  sent  him  staggering  he  dexter- 
ously left  the  noose  fast  on  the  paw.  Jim  and  Jones  in 
unison  let  go  of  their  lasso,  which  streaked  up  through 
the  branches  as  the  lion  fell,  and  then  it  dropped  to  the 
ground,  where  Jim  made  a  flying  grab  for  it.  Jones 
plunging  out  of  the  tree  fell  upon  the  rope  at  the  same 
instant. 

If  the  action  up  to  then  had  been  fast,  it  was  slow  to 
what  followed.  It  seemed  impossible  for  two  strong  men 
with  one  lasso,  and  a  giant  with  another,  to  straighten 


ROPING  LIONS  IN  THE  GRAND  CANYON      71 

out  that  lion.  He  was  all  over  the  little  space  under  the 
trees  at  once.  The  dust  flew,  the  sticks  snapped,  the 
gravel  pattered  like  shot  against  the  cedars.  Jones 
ploughed  the  ground  flat  on  his  stomach,  holding  on  with 
one  hand,  with  the  other  trying  to  fasten  the  rope  to 
something ;  Jim  went  to  his  knees ;  and  on  the  other  side 
of  the  lion,  Emett's  huge  bulk  tipped  a  sharp  angle,  and 
then  fell. 

I  shouted  and  ran  forward,  having  no  idea  what  to  do, 
but  Emett  rolled  backward,  at  the  same  instant  the  other 
men  got  a  strong  haul  on  the  lion.  Short  as  that  moment 
was  in  which  the  lasso  slackened,  it  sufficed  for  Jones  to 
make  the  rope  fast  to  a  tree.  Whereupon  with  the  three 
men  pulling  on  the  other  side  of  the  leaping  lion,  somehow 
I  had  flashed  into  my  mind  the  game  that  children  play, 
called  skipping  the  rope,  for  the  lion  and  lasso  shot  up 
and  down. 

This  lasted  for  only  a  few  seconds.  They  stretched 
the  beast  from  tree  to  tree,  and  Jones  running  with  the 
third  lasso,  made  fast  the  front  paws. 

"It's  a  female,"  said  Jones,  as  the  lion  lay  helpless,  her 
sides  swelling;  "a  good-sized  female.  She's  nearly  eight 
feet  from  tip  to  tip,  but  not  very  heavy.  Hand  me 
another  rope." 

When  all  four  lassos  had  been  stretched,  the  lioness 
could  not  move.  Jones  strapped  a  collar  around  her 
neck  and  clipped  the  sharp  yellow  claws. 

"Now  to  muzzle  her,"  he  continued. 

Jones'  method  of  performing  this  most  hazardous  part 
of  the  work  was  characteristic  of  him.  He  thrust  a  stick 
between  her  open  jaws,  and  when  she  crushed  it  to  splin- 
ters he  tried  another,  and  yet  another,  until  he  found  one 
that  she  could  not  break.  Then  while  she  bit  on  it,  he 
placed  a  wire  loop  over  her  nose,  slowly  tightening  it, 
leaving  the  stick  back  of  her  big  canines. 


72  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

'  The  hounds  ceased  their  yelping  and  when  untied, 
Sounder  wagged  his  tail  as  if  to  say,  "Well  done,"  and 
then  lay  down ;  Don  walked  within  three  feet  of  the  lion, 
as  if  she  were  now  beneath  his  dignity;  Jude  began  to 
nurse  and  lick  her  sore  paw ;  only  Moze  the  incorrigible 
retained  antipathy  for  the  captive,  and  he  growled,  as 
always,  low  and  deep.  And  on  the  moment,  Ranger, 
dusty  and  lame  from  travel,  trotted  wearily  into  the 
glade  and,  looking  at  the  lioness,  gave  one  disgusted  bark 
and  flopped  down. 

Ill 

Transporting  our  captives  to  camp  bade  fair  to  make 
us  work.  When  Jones,  who  had  gone  after  the  pack 
horses,  hove  in  sight  on  the  sage  flat,  it  was  plain  to  us 
that  we  were  in  for  trouble.  The  bay  stallion  was  on  the 
rampage. 

"Why  didn't  you  fetch  the  Indian?"  growled  Emett, 
who  lost  his  temper  when  matters  concerning  his  horses 
went  wrong.     "Spread  out,  boys,  and  head  him  off." 

We  contrived  to  surround  the  stallion,  and  Emett 
succeeded  in  getting  a  halter  on  him. 

"I  didn't  want  the  bay,"  explained  Jones,  "but  I 
couldn't  drive  the  others  without  him.  When  I  told 
that  redskin  that  we  had  two  lions,  he  ran  off  into  the 
woods,  so  I  had  to  come  alone." 

"I'm  going  to  scalp  the  Navajo,"  said  Jim,  compla- 
cently. 

These  remarks  were  exchanged  on  the  open  ridge  at 
the  entrance  to  the  thick  cedar  forest.  The  two  lions 
lay  just  within  its  shady  precincts.  Emett  and  I, 
using  a  long  pole  in  lieu  of  a  horse,  had  carried  Tom 
up  from  the  Canyon  to  where  we  had  captured  the 
lioness. 

Jones  had  brought  a  packsaddle  and  two  panniers. 


BUCKSKIN    FOREST 


p 


lUFFALO    JONES    WITH    SCHNnHK    AND    RAN'GKR 


ROPING  LIONS  IN  THE  GRAND  CANYON      73 

When  Emett  essayed  to  lead  the  horse  which  carried 
these,  the  animal  stood  straight  up  and  began  to  show 
some  of  his  primal  desert  instincts.  It  certainly  was 
good  luck  that  we  unbuckled  the  packsaddle  straps  before 
he  left  the  vicinity.  In  about  three  jumps  he  had  sep- 
arated himself  from  the  panniers,  which  were  then  placed 
upon  the  back  of  another  horse.  This  one,  a  fine  looking 
beast,  and  amiable  under  surroundings  where  his  life  and 
health  were;  considered  even  a  little,  immediately  dis- 
claimed any  intention  of  entering  the  forest. 

"They  scent  the  lions,"  said  Jones.  "I  was  afraid  of 
it;  never  had  but  one  nag  that  would  pack  lions." 

"Maybe  we  can't  pack  them  at  all,"  replied  Emett 
dubiously.     "It's  certainly  new  to  me." 

"We've  got  to,"  Jones  asserted;  "try  the  sorrel." 

For  the  first  time  in  a  serviceable  and  honorable  life, 
according  to  Emett,  the  sorrel  broke  his  halter  and  kicked 
like  a  plantation  mule. 

"It's  a  matter  of  fright.  Try  the  stallion.  He 
doesn't  look  afraid,"  said  Jones,  who  never  knew  when 
he  was  beaten. 

Emett  gazed  at  Jones  as  if  he  had  not  heard  right. 
Go  ahead,  try  the  stallion.     I  like  the  way  he  looks. ' ' 

No  wonder !  The  big  stallion  looked  a  king  of  horses — • 
just  what  he  would  have  been  if  Emett  had  not  taken 
him,  when  a  colt,  from  his  wild  desert  brothers.  He 
scented  the  lions,  and  he  held  his  proud  head  up,  his 
ears  erect,  and  his  large,  dark  eyes  shone  fiery  and  ex- 
pressive. 

"I'll  try  to  lead  him  in  and  let  him  see  the  lions.  We 
can't  fool  him,"  said  Emett. 

Marc  showed  no  hesitation,  nor  anything  we  expected. 
He  stood  stiff -legged,  and  looked  as  if  he  wanted  to  fight. 

"He's  all  right;  he'll  pack  them,"  declared  Jones. 

The  packsaddle  being  strapped  on  and  the  panniers 


74  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

hooked  to  the  horns,  Jones  and  Jim  lifted  Tom  and  shoved 
him  down  into  the  left  pannier  while  Emett  held  the 
horse.  A  madder  lion  than  Tom  never  lived.  It  was 
cruel  enough  to  be  lassoed  and  disgrace  enough  to  be 
"hog-tied,"  as  Jim  called  it,  but  to  be  thrust  down  into 
a  bag  and  packed  on  a  horse  was  adding  insult  to  injury. 
Tom  frothed  at  the  mouth  and  seemed  like  a  fizzing 
torpedo  about  to  explode.  The  lioness  being  consider- 
ably longer  and  larger,  was  with  difficulty  gotten  into 
the  other  pannier,  and  her  head  and  paws  hung  out. 
Both  lions  kept  growling  and  snarling. 

"I  look  to  see  Marc  bolt  over  the  rim,"  said  Emett,  re- 
signedly, as  Jones  took  up  the  end  of  the  rope  halter. 

"No  siree!"  sang  out  that  worthy.  "He's  helping  us 
out;  he's  proud  to  show  up  the  other  nags." 

Jones  was  always  asserting  strange. traits  in  animals, 
and  giving  them  intelligence  and  reason.  As  to  that, 
many  incidents  coming  under  my  observation  while  with 
him,  and  seen  with  his  eyes,  made  me  incline  to  his  claims, 
the  fruit  of  a  lifetime  with  animals. 

Marc  packed  the  lions  to  camp  in  short  order,  and, 
quoting  Jones,  "without  turning  a  hair."  We  saw  the 
Navajo's  head  protruding  from  a  tree.  Emett  yelled  for 
him,  and  Jones  and  Jim  "hahaed"  derisively;  where- 
upon the  black  head  vanished  and  did  not  reappear. 
Then  they  unhooked  one  of  the  panniers  and  dumped  out 
the  lioness.  Jones  fastened  her  chain  to  a  small  pine 
tree,  and  as  she  lay  powerless  he  pulled  out  the  stick  back 
of  her  canines.  This  allowed  the  wire  muzzle  to  fall  off. 
She  signalled  this  freedom  with  a  roar  that  showed  her 
health  to  be  still  unimpaired.  The  last  action  in  releas- 
ing her  from  her  painful  bonds  Jones  performed  with 
sleight-of-hand  dexterity.  He  slipped  the  loop  fastening 
one  paw,  which  loosened  the  rope,  and  in  a  twinkling  let 
her  work  all  of  her  other  paws  free.     Up  she  sprang,  ears 


ROPING  LIONS  IN  THE  GRAND  CANYON      75 

flat,  eyes  ablaze,  mouth  wide,  once  more  capable  of 
defense,  true  to  her  instinct  and  her  name. 

Before  the  men  lowered  Tom  from  Marc's  back  I 
stepped  closer  and  put  my  face  within  six  inches  of  the 
lion's.  He  promptly  spat  on  me.  I  had  to  steel  my 
nerve  to  keep  so  close.  But  I  wanted  to  see  a  wild  lion's 
eyes  at  close  range.  They  were  exquisitely  beautiful, 
their  physical  properties  as  wonderful  as  their  expression. 
Great  half  globes  of  tawny  amber,  streaked  with  deli- 
cate wavy  lines  of  black,  surrounding  pupils  of  intense 
purple  fire.  Pictures  shone  and  faded  in  the  amber 
light — the  shaggy  tipped  plateau,  the  dark  pines  and 
smoky  canyons,  the  great  dotted  downward  slopes,  the 
yellow  cliffs  and  crags.  Deep  in  those  live  pupils, 
changing,  quickening  with  a  thousand  vibrations,  quiv- 
ered the  soul  of  this  savage  beast,  the  wildest  of  all  wild 
Nature,  unquenchable  love  of  life  and  freedom,  flame  of 
defiance  and  hate. 

Jones  disposed  of  Tom  in  the  same  manner  as  he  had 
the  lioness,  chaining  him  to  an  adjoining  small  pine, 
where  he  leaped  and  wrestled. 

Presently  I  saw  Emett  coming  through  the  woods 
leading  and  dragging  the  Indian.  I  felt  sorry  for  the 
Navvy,  for  I  felt  that  his  fear  was  not  so  much  physical 
as  spiritual.  And  it  seemed  no  wonder  to  me  that  the 
Navvy  should  hang  back  from  this  sacrilegious  treatment 
of  his  god.  A  natural  wisdomi,  which  I  had  in  common 
with  all  human  beings  who  consider  self  preservation  the 
first  law  of  life,  deterred  me  from  acquainting  my  august 
companions  with  my  belief.  At  least  I  did  not  want  to 
break  up  the  camp. 

In  the  remorseless  grasp  of  Emett,  forced  along,  the 
Navajo  dragged  his  feet  and  held  his  face  sidewise, 
though  his  dark  eyes  gleamed  at  the  lions.  Terror 
predominated  among  the  expressions  of  his  countenance. 


76  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

Emett  drew  him  within  fifteen  feet  and  held  him  there, 
and  with  voice,  and  gesticulating  of  his  free  hand,  tried 
to  show  the  poor  fellow  that  the  lions  would  not  hurt 
him. 

Navvy  stared  and  muttered  to  himself.  Here  Jim  had 
some  deviltry  in  mind,  for  he  edged  up  closer;  but  what 
it  was  never  transpired,  for  Emett  suddenly  pointed  to 
the  horses  and  said  to  the  Indian : 

"Chineago  (feed)." 

It  appeared  when  Navvy  swung  himself  over  Marc's 
broad  back,  that  our  great  stallion  had  laid  aside  his 
transiently  noble  disposition  and  was  himself  again. 
Marc  proceeded  to  show  us  how  truly  Jim  had  spoken : 
"Shore  he  ain't  no  use  for  the  redskin."  Before  the 
Indian  had  fairly  gotten  astride,  Marc  dropped  his  head, 
humped  his  shoulders,  brought  his  feet  together  and 
began  to  buck.  Now  the  Navajo  was  a  famous  breaker 
of  wild  mustangs,  but  Marc  was  a  tougher  proposition 
than  the  wildest  mustang  that  ever  romped  the  desert. 
Not  only  was  he  unusually  vigorous ;  he  was  robust  and 
heavy,  yet  exceedingly  active.  I  had  seen  him  roll  over 
in  the  dust  three  times  each  way,  and  do  it  easily — a  feat 
Emett  declared  he  had  never  seen  performed  by  another 
horse. 

Navvy  began  to  bounce.  He  showed  his  teeth  and 
twisted  his  sinewy  hands  in  the  horse's  mane.  Marc 
began  to  act  like  a  demon;  he  plowed  the  ground;  ap- 
parently he  bucked  five  feet  straight  up.  As  the  Indian 
had  bounced  he  now  began  to  shoot  into  the  air.  He  rose 
the  last  time  with  his  heels  over  his  head,  to  the  full 
extent  of  his  arms ;  and  on  plunging  down  his  hold  broke. 
He  spun  around  the  horse,  then  went  hurtling  to  the 
ground  some  twenty  feet  away.  He  sat  up,  and  seeing 
Emett  and  Jones  laughing,  and  Jim  prostrated  with  joy, 
he  showed  his  white  teeth  in  a  smile  and  said: 


ROPING  LIONS  IN  THE  GRAND  CANYON      77 

"No  bueno  dam." 

I  think  all  of  us  respected  Navvy  for  his  good  humor, 
and  especially  when  he  walked  up  to  Marc,  and  with  no 
show  of  the  mean  Indian,  patted  the  glossy  neck  and 
then  nimbly  remounted.  Marc,  not  being  so  difficult  to 
please  as  Jim  in  the  way  of  discomfiting  the  Navajo, 
appeared  satisfied  for  the  present,  and  trotted  off  down 
the  hollow,  with  the  string  of  horses  ahead,  their  bells 
jingling. 

Camp-fire  tasks  were  a  necessary  wage  in  order  to  earn 
the  full  enjoyment  and  benefit  of  the  hunting  trip ;  and 
looking  for  some  task  with  which  to  turn  my  hand,  I 
helped  Jim  feed  the  hounds.  To  feed  ordinary  dogs  is 
a  matter  of  throwing  them  a  bone ;  however,  our  dogs 
were  not  ordinary.  It  took  time  to  feed  them,  and  a 
prodigious  amount  of  meat.  We  had  packed  between 
three  and  four  hundred  pounds  of  wild-horse  meat,  which 
had  been  cut  into  small  pieces  and  strung  on  the  branches 
of  a  scrub  oak  near  camp. 

Don,  as  befitted  a  gentleman  and  the  leader  of  the 
greatest  pack  in  the  West,  had  to  be  fed  by  hand.  I 
believe  he  would  rather  had  starved  than  have  demeaned 
himself  by  fighting.  Starved  he  certainly  would  have, 
if  Jim  had  thrown  meat  indiscriminately  to  the  ground. 
Sounder  asserted  his  rights  and  preferred  large  portions 
at  a  time.  Jude  begged  with  great  solemn  eyes  but  was 
no  slouch  at  eating  for  all  her  gentleness.  Ranger, 
because  of  imperfectly  developed  teeth  rendering  masti- 
cation difficult,  had  to  have  his  share  cut  into  very  small 
pieces.  As  for  Moze — well,  great  dogs  have  their  faults 
as  do  great  men — ^he  never  got  enough  meat;  he  would 
fight  even  poor  crippled  Jude,  and  steal  even  from  the 
pups;  when  he  had  gotten  all  Jim  would  give  him,  and 
all  he  could  snatch,  he  would  growl  away  with  bulging 
sides. 


78  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

"How  about  feeding  the  lions?"  asked  Emett. 

"They'll  drink  to-night,"  replied  Jones,  "but  won't 
eat  for  days;  then  we'll  tempt  them  with  fresh  rabbits." 

We  made  a  hearty  meal,  succeeding  which  Jones  and 
I  walked  through  the  woods  toward  the  rim.  A  yellow 
promontory,  huge  and  glistening,  invited  us  westward, 
and  after  a  detour  of  half  a  mile  we  reached  it.  The 
points  of  the  rim,  striking  out  into  the  immense  void, 
always  drew  me  irresistibly.  We  found  the  view  from 
this  rock  one  of  startling  splendor.  The  corrugated  rim- 
wall  of  the'  middle  wing  extended  to  the  west,  at  this 
moment  apparently  running  into  the  setting  sun.  The 
gold  glare  touching  up  the  millions  of  facets  of  chiseled 
stone,  created  color  and  brilliance  too  glorious  and  in- 
tense for  the  gaze  of  men.  And  looking  downward  was 
like  looking  into  the  placid,  blue,  bottomless  depths  of 
the  Pacific. 

"Here,  help  me  push  off  this  stone,"  I  said  to  Jones.  We 
heaved  a  huge  round  stone,  and  were  encouraged  to  feel  it 
move.  Fortunately  we  had  a  little  slope;  the  boulder 
groaned,-  rocked  and  began  to  slide.  Just  as  it  toppled 
over  I  glanced  at  the  second  hand  of  my  watch.  Then 
with  eyes  over  the  rim  we  waited.  The  silence  was  the 
silence  of  the  canyon,  dead  and  vast,  intensified  by  our 
breathless  earstrain.  Ten  long  palpitating  seconds  and  no 
sound !  I  gave  up.  The  distance  was  too  great  for  sound 
to  reach  us.     Fifteen  seconds — seventeen — eighteen — 

With  that  a  puff  of  air  seemed  to  rise,  and  on  it  the 
most  awful  bellow  of  thunderous  roar.  It  rolled  up  and 
widened,  deadened  to  burst  out  and  roll  louder,  then 
slowly,  like  mountains  on  wheels,  rumbled  under  the 
rim-walls,  passing  on  and  on,  to  roar  back  in  echo  from 
the  clift's  of  the  mesas.  Roar  and  rumble — roar  and 
rumble !  for  two  long  moments  the  dull  and  hollow  echoes 
rolled  at  us,  to  die  away  slowly  in  the  far-distant  *„anyons. 


ROPING  LIONS  IN  THE  GRAND  CANYON      79 

"That's  a  darned  deep  hole,"  commented  Jones. 

Twilight  stole  down  on  us  idling  there,  silent,  content 
to  watch  the  red  glow  pass  away  from  the  buttes  and 
peaks,  the  color  deepening  downward  to  meet  the  ebon 
shades  of  night  creeping  up  like  a  dark  tide. 

On  turning  toward  the  camp  we  essayed  a  short  cut, 
which  brought  us  to  a  deep  hollow  with  stony  walls, 
which  seemed  better  to  go  around.  The  hollow,  however, 
was  quite  long  and  we  decided  presently  to  cross  it. 
We  descended  a  little  way  when  Jones  suddenly  barred 
my  progress  with  his  big  arm. 

"Listen,"  he  whispered. 

It  was  quiet  in  the  woods ;  only  a  faint  breeze  stirred 
the  pine  needles ;  and  the  weird,  gray  darkness  seemed  to 
be  approaching  under  the  trees. 

I  heard  the  patter  of  light,  hard  hoofs  on  the  scaly 
sides  of  the  hollow. 

"Deer?"  I  asked  my  companion  in  a  low  voice. 

"Yes;  see,"  he  replied,  pointing  ahead,  "just  right 
under  that  broken  wall  of  rock;  right  there  on  this  side; 
they're  going  down." 

I  descried  gray  objects  the  color  of  the  rocks,  moving 
down  like  shadows. 

"Have  they  scented  us?" 

' '  Hardly ;  the  breeze  is  against  us.  Maybe  they  heard 
us  break  a  twig.  They've  stopped,  but  they  are  not 
looking  our  way.     Now  I  wonder — " 

Rattling  of  stones  set  into  movement  by  some  quick, 
sharp  action,  an  indistinct  crash,  but  sudden,  as  of  the 
impact  of  soft,  heavy  bodies,  a  strange  wild  sound  pre- 
ceded in  rapid  succession  violent  brushings  and  thump- 
ings  in  the  scrub  of  the  hollow. 

"Lion  jumped  a  deer,"  yelled  Jones.  "Right  under 
our  eyes!    Come  on!    Hi!  Hi!  Hi!" 

He  ran  down  the  incline  yelling  all  of  the  way,  and  I 


8o  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

kept  close  to  him,  adding  my  yells  to  his,  and  gripping 
my  revolver.  Toward  the  bottom  the  thicket  barred  our 
progress  so  that  we  had  to  smash  through  and  I  came  out 
a  little  ahead  of  Jones.  And  farther  up  the  hollow  I  saw 
a  gray  swiftly  bounding  object  too  long  and  too  low  for 
a  deer,  and  I  hurriedly  shot  six  times  at  it. 

"By  George!  Come  here,"  called  my  companion. 
"How's  this  for  quick  work?     It's  a  yearling  doe." 

In  another  moment  I  leaned  over  a  gray  mass  huddled 
at  Jones  feet.  It  was  a  deer  gasping  and  choking.  I 
plainly  heard  the  wheeze  of  blood  in  its  throat,  and  the 
sound,  like  a  death-rattle,  affected  me  powerfully. 
Bending  closer,  I  saw  where  one  side  of  the  neck,  low 
down,  had  been  terribly  lacerated. 

"Waa-hoo!"  pealed  down  the  slope. 

"That's  Emett,"  cried  Jones,  answering  the  sig- 
nal. "If  you  have  another  shot  put  this  doe  out  of 
agony." 

But  I  had  not  a  shot  left,  nor  did  either  of  us  have  a 
clasp  knife.  We  stood  there  while  the  doe  gasped  and 
quivered.  The  peculiar  sound,  probably  made  by  the 
intake  of  air  through  the  laceration  of  the  throat,  on  the 
spur  of  the  moment  seemed  pitifully  human. 

I  felt  that  the  struggle  for  life  and  death  in  any  living 
thing  was  a  horrible  spectacle.  With  great  interest  I  had 
studied  natural  selection,  the  variability  of  animals  under 
different  conditions  of  struggling  existence,  the  law 
whereby  one  animal  struck  down  and  devoured  another. 
But  I  had  never  seen  and  heard  that  law  enacted  on  such 
a  scale ;  and  suddenly  I  abhorred  it. 

Emett  strode  to  us  through  the  gathering  darkness. 

"What's  up?"  he  asked  quickly. 

He  carried  my  Remington  in  one  hand  and  his  Win- 
chester in  the  other;  and  he  moved  so  assuredly  and 
loomed  up  so  big  in  the  dusk  that  I  experienced  a  sudden 


JONES    ABOUT    TO    LASSO    A    MOUNTAIN    LION 


REMAINS    UK    A    UEEK    KILLED    HV    LIONS 


ROPING"  LIONS  IN  THE  GRAND  CANYON      8i 

little  rush  of  feeling  as  to  what  his  advent  might  mean  at 
a  time  of  real  peril. 

"Emett,  I've  lived  to  see  many  things,"  replied  Jones, 
"but  this  is  the  first  time  I  ever  saw  a  lion  jump  a  deer 
right  under  my  nose!" 

As  Emett  bent  over  to  seize  the  long  ears  of  the  deer,  I 
noticed  the  gasping  had  ceased. 

"Neck  broken,"  he  said,  lifting  the  head.  "Well,  I'm 
danged.  Must  have  been  an  all-fired  strong  lion.  He'll 
come  back,  you  may  be  sure  of  that.  Let's  skin  out  the 
quarters  and  hang  the  carcass  up  in  a  tree ! " 

We  returned  to  camp  in  a  half  an  hour,  the  richer  for 
our  walk  by  a  quantity  of  fresh  venison.  Upon  being 
acquainted  with  our  adventure,  Jim  expressed  himself 
rather  more  fairly  than  was  his  customary  way. 

"Shore  that  beats  hell!  I  knowed  there  was  a  lion 
somewheres,  because  Don  wouldn't  lie  down.  I'd  like 
to  get  a  pop  at  the  brute." 

I  believed  Jim's  wish  found  an  echo  in  all  our  hearts. 
At  any  rate  to  hear  Emett  and  Jones  express  regret  over 
the  death  of  the  doe  justified  in  some  degree  my  own 
feelings,  and  I  thought  it  was  not  so  much  the  death,  but 
the  lingering  and  terrible  manner  of  it,  and  especially  how 
vividly  it  connoted  the  wild-life  drama  of  the  plateau. 
The  tragedy  we  had  all  but  interrupted  occurred  every 
night,  perhaps  often  in  the  day  and  likely  at  different 
points  at  the  same  time.  Emett  told  how  he  had  found 
fourteen  piles  of  bleached  bones  and  dried  hair  in  the 
thickets  of  less  than  a  mile  of  the  hollow  on  which  we 
were  encamped. 

"We'll  rope  the  danged  cats,  boys,  or  we'll  kill  them." 

"It's  blowing  cold.  Hey,  Navvy,  coco!  coco!''  called 
Emett. 

The  Indian,  carefully  laying  aside  his  cigarette,  kicked 
up  the  fire  and  threw  on  more  wood. 


82  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

"Discass!  (cold),"  he  said  to  me.  "Coco,  bueno  (fire 
good)." 

I  replied,  "Me  savvy — yes." 

"Sleep-ie?"  he  asked. 

"Mucha,"  I  returned. 

While  we  carried  on  a  sort  of  novel  conversation  full  of 
Navajo,  English,  and  gestures,  darkness  settled  down 
black.  I  saw  the  stars  disappear;  the  wind  changing  to 
the  north  grew  colder  and  carried  a  breath  of  snow.  I 
like  north  wind  best — from  under  the  warm  blankets — 
because  of  the  roar  and  lull  and  lull  and  roar  in  the  pines. 
Crawling  into  the  bed  presently,  I  lay  there  and  listened 
to  the  rising  storm-wind  for  a  long  time.  Sometimes  it 
swelled  and  crashed  like  the  sound  of  a  breaker  on  the 
beach,  but  mostly,  from  a  low  incessant  moan,  it  rose 
and  filled  to  a  mighty  rush,  then  suddenly  lulled.  This 
lull,  despite  a  wakeful,  thronging  mind,  was  conducive 
to  sleep. 

IV 

To  be  awaked  from  pleasant  dreams  is  the  lot  of  man. 
The  Navajo  aroused  me  with  his  singing,  and  when  I 
peeped  languidly  from  under  the  flap  of  my  sleeping  bag, 
I  felt  a  cold  air  and  saw  fleecy  flakes  of  white  drifting 
through  the  small  window  of  my  tent. 

"Snow;  by  all  that's  lucky!"  I  exclaimed,  remember- 
ing Jones'  hopes.  Straightway  my  langour  vanished  and 
getting  into  my  boots  and  coat  I  went  outside.  Navvy's 
bed  lay  in  six  inches  of  snow.  The  forest  was  beautifully 
white.  A  fine  dazzling  snow  was  falling.  I  walked  to  the 
roaring  camp-fire.  Jim's  biscuits,  well-browned  and  of 
generous  size,  had  just  been  dumped  into  the  middle  of 
our  breakfast  cloth,  a  tarpaulin  spread  on  the  ground; 
the  coffee  pot  steamed  fragrantly,  and  a  Dutch  oven 
sizzled  with  a  great  number  of  slices  of  venison. 


ROPING  LIONS  IN  THE  GRAND  CANYON      83 

"Did  you  hear  the  Indian  chanting? "  asked  Jones,  who 
sat  with  his  horny  hands  to  the  blaze. 

"I  heard  his  singing." 

"No,  it  wasn't  a  song;  the  Navajo  never  sings  in  the 
morning.  What  you  heard  was  his  morning  prayer,  a 
chant,  a  reHgious  and  solemn  ritual  to  the  break  of  day. 
Emett  says  it  is  a  custom  of  the  desert  tribe.  You  re- 
member how  we  saw  the  Mokis  sitting  on  the  roofs  of 
their  little  adobe  huts  in  the  gray  of  the  morning.  They 
always  greet  the  sun  in  that  way.     The  Navajos  chant." 

It  certainly  was  worth  remembering,  I  thought,  and 
mentally  observed  that  I  would  wake  up  thereafter  and 
listen  to  the  Indian. 

"Good  luck  and  bad!"  went  on  Jones.  "Snow  is 
what  we  want,  but  now  we  can't  find  the  scent  of  our 
lion  of  last  night." 

Low  growls  and  snarls  attracted  me.  Both  our  cap- 
tives presented  sorry  spectacles;  they  were  wet,  dirty, 
bedraggled.  Emett  had  chopped  down  a  small  pine, 
the  branches  of  which  he  was  using  to  make  shelter  for 
the  lions.  While  I  looked  on  Tom  tore  his  to  pieces 
several  times,  but  the  lioness  crawled  under  hers  and 
began  licking  her  chops.  At  length  Tom,  seeing  that 
Emett  meant  no  underhand  trick,  backed  out  of  the 
drizzling  snow  and  lay  down. 

Emett  had  already  constructed  a  shack  for  the  hounds. 
It  was  a  way  of  his  to  think  of  everything.  He  had  the 
most  extraordinary  ability.  A  stroke  of  his  axe,  a  twist 
of  his  great  hands,  a  turn  of  this  or  that  made  camp  a 
more  comfortable  place.  And  if  something,  no  matter 
what,  got  out  of  order  or  broken,  there  was  Emett  to 
show  what  it  was  to  be  a  man  of  the  desert.  It  had  been 
my  good  fortune  to  see  many  able  men  on  the  trail  and 
round  the  camp-fire,  but  not  one  of  them  even  approached 
Emett's  class.     When  I  said  a  word  to  him  about  his 


84  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

knack  with  things,  his  reply  was  illuminating:  "I'm 
fifty-eight,  and  four  out  of  every  five  nights  of  my  life 
I  have  slept  away  from  home  on  the  ground." 

"Chineago!"  called  Jim,  who  had  begun  with  all  of  us 
to  assimilate  a  little  of  the  Navajo's  language. 

Whereupon  we  fell  to  eating  with  appetite  unknown 
to  any  save  hunters.  Somehow  the  Indian  had  gravi- 
tated to  me  at  meal  times,  and  now  he  sat  cross-legged 
beside  me,  holding  out  his  plate  and  looking  as  hungry  as 
Moze.  At  first  he  had  always  asked  for  the  same  kind 
of  food  that  I  happened  to  have  on  my  own  plate. 
When  I  had  finished  and  had  no  desire  to  eat  more,  he 
gave  up  his  faculty  of  imitation  and  asked  for  anything 
he  could  get.  The  Navajo  had  a  marvelous  appetite. 
He  liked  sweet  things,  sugar  best  of  all.  It  was  a  fatal 
error  to  let  him  get  his  hands  on  a  can  of  fruit.  Although 
he  inspired  Jones  with  disgust  and  Jim  with  worse,  he  was 
a  source  of  unfailing  pleasure  to  me.  He  called  me 
"Mista  Gay"  and  he  pronounced  the  words  haltingly  in 
low  voice  and  with  unmistakable  respect. 

"What's  on  for  today?"  queried  Emett. 

"I  guess  we  may  as  well  hang  around  camp  and  rest 
the  hounds,"  replied  Jones.  "I  did  intend  to  go  after 
the  lion  that  killed  the  deer,  but  this  snow  has  taken  away 
the  scent." 

"Shore  it'll  stop  snowin'  soon,"  said  Jim. 

The  falling  snow  had  thinned  out  and  looked  like 
flying  powder ;  the  leaden  clouds,  rolling  close  to  the  tree- 
tops,  grew  brighter  and  brighter ;  bits  of  azure  slcy  shone 
through  rifts. 

Navvy  had  tramped  off  to  find  the  horses,  and  not  long 
after  his  departure  he  sent  out  a  prolonged  yell  that 
echoed  through  the  forest. 

"Something's  up,"  said  Emett  instantly.  "An  Indian 
never  yells  lilve  that  at  a  horse." 


ROPING  LIONS  IN  THE  GRAND  CANYON      85 

We  waited  quietly  for  a  moment,  expecting  to  hear  the 
yell  repeated.  It  was  not,  though  we  soon  heard  the 
jangle  of  bells,  which  told  us  he  had  the  horses  coming. 
He  appeared  off  to  the  right,  riding  Foxie  and  racing  the 
others  toward  camp. 

"Cougie — mucha  big — dam!"  he  said  leaping  off  the 
mustang  to  confront  us. 

"Emett,  does  he  mean  he  saw  a  cougar  or  a  track?" 
questioned  Jones. 

"Me  savvy,"  replied  the  Indian.     "Butteen,  butteen!'* 

"He  says,  trail — trail,"  put  in  Emett.  "I  guess  I'd 
better  go  and  see." 

"I'll  go  with  you,"  said  Jones.  "Jim,  keep  the  hounds 
tight  and  hurry  with  the  horses'  oats." 

We  followed  the  tracks  of  the  horses  which  lead  south- 
west toward  the  rim,  and  a  quarter  of  a  mile  from  camp 
we  crossed  a  lion  trail  running  at  right  angles  with  our 
direction. 

"Old  Sultan!"  I  cried,  breathlessly,  recognizing  that 
the  tracks  had  been  made  by  a  giant  lion  we  had  named 
Sultan.  They  were  huge,  round,  and  deep,  and  with 
my  spread  hand  I  could  not  reach  across  one  of  them. 

Without  a  word,  Jones  strode  off  on  the  trail.  It 
headed  east  and  after  a  short  distance  turned  toward 
camp.  I  suppose  Jones  knew  what  the  lion  had  been 
about,  but  to  Emett  and  me  it  was  mystifying.  Two 
hundred  yards  from  camp  we  came  to  a  fallen  pine,  the 
body  of  which  was  easily  six  feet  high.  On  the  side  of 
this  log,  almost  on  top,  were  two  enormous  lion  tracks, 
imprinted  in  the  mantle  of  snow.  From  here  the  trail 
led  off  northeast. 

' '  Darn  me ! ' '  ejaculated  Jones.  ' '  The  big  critter  came 
right  into  camp;  he  scented  our  lions,  and  raised  up  on 
this  log  to  look  over." 

Wheeling,  he  started  for  camp  on  the  trot.  Emett 
7 


86  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

and  I  kept  even  with  him.  Words  were  superfluous.  We 
knew  what  was  coming.  A  made-to-order  lion  trail 
could  not  have  equalled  the  one  right  in  the  back  yard  of 
our  camp. 

"Saddle  up!"  said  Jones,  with  the  sharp  inflection  of 
words  that  had  come  to  thrill  me.  "Jim,  Old  Sultan  has 
taken  a  look  at  us  since  break  of  day." 

I  got  into  my  chaps, i  rammed  my  little  automatic  into 
its  saddle  holster  and  mounted.  Foxie  seemed  to  want 
to  go.  The  hounds  came  out  of  their  sheds  and  yawned, 
looking  at  us  knowingly.  Emett  spoke  a  word  to  the 
Navajo,  and  then  we  were  trotting  down  through  the 
forest.  The  sun  had  broken  out  warm,  causing  water  to 
drip  off  the  snow  laden  pines.  The  three  of  us  rode  close 
behind  Jones,  who  spoke  low  and  sternly  to  the  hounds. 

What  an  opportunity  to  watch  Don !  I  wondered  how 
soon  he  would  catch  the  scent  of  the  trail.  He  led  the 
pack  as  usual  and  kept  to  a  liesurely  dog-trot.  When 
within  twenty  yards  of  the  fallen  log,  he  stopped  for  an 
instant  and  held  up  his  head,  though  without  exhibiting 
any  suspicion  or  uneasiness. 

The'  wind  blew  strong  at  our  backs,  a  circumstance 
that  probably  kept  Don  so  long  in  ignorance  of  the  trail. 
A  few'  yards  further  on,  however,  he  stopped  and  raised 
his  fine  head.  He  lowered  it  and  trotted  on  only  to  stop 
again.  His  easy  air  of  satisfaction  with  the  morning 
suddenly  vanished.  His  savage  hunting  instinct  awak- 
ened through  some  channel  to  raise  the  short  yellow  hair 
on  his  neck  and  shoulders  and  make  it  stand  stiff.  He 
stood  undecided  with  warily  shifting  nose,  then  jumped 
forward  with  a  yelp.  Another  jump  brought  another 
sharp  cry  from  him.  Sounder,  close  behind,  echoed  the 
yelp.  Jude  began  to  whine.  Then  Don,  with  a  wild 
howl,  leaped  ten  feet  to  alight  on  the  lion  trail  and  to 
break  into  wonderfully  rapid  flight.     The  seven  other 


ROPING  LIONS  IN  THE  GRAND  CANYON      87 

hounds,  bunched  in  a  black  and  yellow  group,  tore  after 
him  filling  the  forest  with  their  wild  uproar. 

Emett's  horse  bounded  as  I  have  seen  a  great  racer 
leave  the  post,  and  his  desert  brothers,  loving  wild  bursts 
of  speed,  needing  no  spur,  kept  their  noses  even  with  his 
flanks.  The  soft  snow,  not  too  deep,  rather  facilitated 
than  impeded  this  wild  movement,  and  the  open  forest 
was  like  a  highway. 

So  we  rode,  bending  low  in  the  saddle,  keen  eyes  alert 
for  branches,  vaulting  the  white-blanketed  logs,  and 
swerving  as  we  split  to  pass  the  pines.  The  mist  from 
the  melting  snow  moistened  our  faces,  and  the  rushing 
air  cooled  them  with  fresh,  soft  sensation.  There  were 
moments  when  we  rode  abreast  and  others  when  we  sailed 
single  file,  with  white  ground  receding,  vanishing  behind 
us. 

My  feeling  was  one  of  glorious  excitation  in  the  swift, 
smooth  flight  and  a  grim  assurance  of  soon  seeing  the  old 
lion.  But  I  hoped  we  would  not  rout  him  too  soon  from 
under  a  windfall,  or  a  thicket  where  he  had  dragged  a 
deer,  because  the  race  was  too  splendid  a  thing  to  cut 
short.  Through  my  mind  whirled  with  inconceivable 
rapidity  the  great  lion  chases  on  which  we  had  ridden  the 
year  before.  And  this  was  another  chase,  only  more 
stirring,  more  beautiful,  because  it  was  the  nature  of  the 
thing  to  grow  always  with  experience. 

Don  slipped  out  of  sight  among  the  pines.  The  others 
strung  along  the  trail,  glinted  across  the  sunlit  patches. 
The  black  pup  was  neck  and  neck  with  Ranger. 
Sounder  ran  at  their  heels,  leading  the  other  pups. 
Moze  dashed  on  doggedly  ahead  of  Jude. 

But  for  us  to  keep  to  the  open  forest,  close  to  the 
hounds,  was  not  in  the  nature  of  a  lion  chase.  Old 
Sultan's  trail  turned  due  west  when  he  began  to  go  down 
the  little  hollows  and  their  intervening  ridges.     We  lost 


88  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

ground.  The  pack  left  us  behind.  The  slope  of  the 
plateau  became  decided.  We  rode  out  of  the  pines  to 
find  the  snow  failing  in  the  open.  Water  ran  in  little 
gullies  and  glistened  on  the  sagebrush.  A  half  mile 
further  down  the  snow  had  gone.  We  came  upon  the 
hounds  running  at  fault,  except  Sounder,  and  he  had 
given  up. 

"All  over,"  sang  out  Jones,  turning  his  horse.  "The 
lion's  track  and  his  scent  have  gone  with  the  snow.  I 
reckon  we'll  do  as  well  to  wait  until  tomorrow.  He's 
down  in  the  middle  wing  somewhere  and  it  is  my  idea 
we  might  catch  his  trail  as  he  comes  back." 

The  sudden  dashing  aside  of  our  hopes  was  exasper- 
ating. There  seemed  no  help  for  it;  abrupt  ending  to 
exciting  chases  were  but  features  of  the  lion  hunt.  The 
warm  sun  had  been  hours  on  the  lower  end  of  the 
plateau,  where  the  snow  never  lay  long;  and  even  if  we 
found  a  fresh  morning  trail  in  the  sand,  the  heat  w^ould 
have  burned  out  the  scent. 

So  rapidly  did  the  snow  thaw  that  by  the  time  we 
reached  camp  only  the  shady  patches  were  left. 

It  was  almost  eleven  o'clock  when  I  lay  down  on  my 
bed  to  rest  awhile  and  fell  asleep.  The  tramp  of  a 
horse  awakened  me.  I  heard  Jim  calling  Jones.  Think- 
ing it  was  time  to  eat  I  went  out.  The  snow  had  all 
disappeared  and  the  forest  was  brown  as  ever.  Jim  sat 
on  his  horse  and  Navvy  appeared  riding  up  to  the  hollow, 
leading  the  saddle  horses. 

"Jones,  get  out,"  called  Jim. 

"Can't  you  let  a  fellow  sleep?  I'm  not  hungry,"  re- 
plied Jones  testily. 

"Get  out  and  saddle  up,"  continued  Jim. 

Jones  burst  out  of  his  tent,  with  rumpled  hair  and 
sleepy  eyes. 

"I  went  over  to  see  the  carcass  of  the  deer  an'  found  a 


ROPING  LIONS  IN  THE  GRAND  CANYON      89 

lion  sittin'  up  in  the  tree,  feedin'  for  all  he  was  worth. 
He  jumped  out  an'  ran  up  the  hollow  an'  over  the  rim. 
So  I  rustled  back  for  you  fellows.  Lively  now,  we'll  get 
this  one  sure." 

"Was  it  the  big  fellow?"   I  asked. 

"No,  but  he  ain't  no  kitten;  an'  he's  a  fine  color,  sort 
of  reddish.  I  never  seen  one  just  as  bright.  Where's 
Emett?" 

* ' I  don't  know.  He  was  here  a  little  while  ago.  Shall 
I  signal  for  him?" 

"Don't  yell,"  cried  Jones  holding  up  his  fingers.  "Be 
quiet  now." 

Without  another  word  we  finished  saddling,  mounted 
and,  close  together,  with  the  hounds  in  front,  rode 
through  the  forest  toward  the  rim. 

V 

We  rode  in  different  directions  toward  the  hollow,  the 
better  to  chance  meeting  with  Emett,  but  none  of  us 
caught  a  glimpse  of  him. 

It  happened  that  when  we  headed  into  the  hollow  it 
was  at  a  point  just  above  where  the  deer  carcass  hung  in 
the  scrub  oak.  Don  in  spite  of  Jones'  stern  yells,  let  out 
his  eager  hunting  yelp  and  darted  down  the  slope.  The 
pack  bolted  after  him  and  in  less  than  ten  seconds  were 
racing  up  the  hollow,  their  thrilling,  blending  bays  a 
welcome  spur  to  action.  Though  I  spoke  not  a  word  to 
my  mustang  nor  had  time  to  raise  the  bridle,  he  wheeled 
to  one  side  and  began  to  run.  The  other  horses  also 
kept  to  the  ridge,  as  I  could  tell  by  the  pounding  of  hoofs 
on  the  soft  turf.  The  hounds  in  full  cry  right  under  us 
urged  our  good  steeds  to  a  terrific  pace.  It  was  well  that 
the  ridge  afforded  clear  going. 

The  speed  at  which  we  traveled,  however,  fast  as  it 


90  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

was,  availed  not  to  keep  up  with  the  pack.  In  a  short 
half  mile,  just  as  the  hollow  sloped  and  merged  into  level 
ground,  they  left  us  behind  and  disappeared  so  quickly 
as  almost  to  frighten  me.  My  mustang  plunged  out  of 
the  forest  to  the  rim  and  dashed  along,  apparently  un- 
mindful of  the  chasm.  The  red  and  yellow  surface 
blurred  in  a  blinding  glare.  I  heard  the  chorus  of  hounds, 
but  as  its  direction  baffled  me  I  trusted  to  my  horse  and 
I  did  well,  for  soon  he  came  to  a  dead  halt  on  the  rim. 

Then  I  heard  the  hounds  below  me.  I  had  but  time 
to  see  the  character  of  the  place — long,  yellow  promon- 
tories running  out  and  slopes  of  weathered  stone  reaching 
up  between  to  a  level  with  the  rim— when  in  a  dwarf  pine 
growing  just  over  the  edge  I  caught  sight  of  a  long,  red, 
pantherish  body. 

I  whooped  to  my  followers  now  close  upon  me  and  leap- 
ing off  hauled  out  my  Remington  and  ran  to  the  cliff.  The 
lion's  long,  slender  body,  of  a  rare  golden-red  color,  bright, 
clean,  black-tipped  and  white-bellied,  proclaimed  it  a 
female  of  exceeding  beauty.  I  could  have  touched  her 
with  a  fishing  rod  and  saw  how  easily  she  could  be  roped 
from  where  I  stood.  The  tree  in  which  she  had  taken 
refuge  grew  from  the  head  of  a  weathered  slope  and  rose 
close  to  the  wall.  At  that  point  it  was  merely  a  parapet 
of  crumbling  yellow  rock.  No  doubt  she  had  lain  con- 
cealed under  the  shelving  wall  and  had  not  had  time  to 
get  away  before  the  hounds  were  right  upon  her. 

"She's  going  to  jump,"  yelled  Jones,  in  my  rear,  as  he 
dismounted. 

I  saw  a  golden-red  streak  flash  downward,  heard  a  mad 
medley  from  the  hounds,  a  cloud  of  dust  rose,  then  some- 
thing bright  shone  for  a  second  to  the  right  along  the  wall. 
I  ran  with  all  my  might  to  a  headland  of  rock  upon  which 
I  scrambled  and  saw  with  joy  that  I  could  command  the 
situation. 


ROPING  LIONS  IN  THE  GRAND  CANYON      91 

The  lioness  was  not  in  sight,  nor  were  the  hounds. 
The  latter,  however,  were  hot  on  the  trail.  I  knew  the 
lioness  had  taken  to  another  tree  or  a  hole  under  the 
wall,  and  would  soon  be  routed  out.  This  time  I  felt 
sure  she  would  run  down  and  I  took  a  rapid  glance  below. 
The  slope  inclined  at  a  steep  angle  and  was  one  long  slide 
of  bits  of  yellow  stone  with  many  bunches  of  scrub  oak 
and  manzanita.  Those  latter  I  saw  with  satisfaction, 
because  in  case  I  had  to  go  down  they  would  stop  the 
little  avalanches.  The  slope  reached  down  perhaps  five 
hundred  yards  and  ended  in  a  thicket  and  jumble  of 
rocks  from  which  rose  on  the  right  a  bare  yellow  slide. 
This  ran  up  to  a  low  cliff.  I  hoped  the  lion  would  not  go 
that  way,  for  it  led  to  great  broken  battlements  of  rim. 
Left  of  the  slide  was  a  patch  of  cedars. 

Jim's  yell  pealed  out,  followed  by  the  familiar  pene- 
trating howl  of  the  pack  when  it  sighted  game.  With 
that  I  saw  the  lioness  leaping  down  the  slope  and  close 
behind  her  a  yellow  hound. 

"Go  it,  Don,  old  boy!"  I  yelled,  wild  with  delight. 

A  crushing  step  on  the  stones  told  me  Jones  had 
arrived. 

"Hi!  Hi!  Hi!"  roared  he. 

I  thought  then  that  if  the  lioness  did  not  cover  thirty 
feet  at  every  jump  I  was  not  in  a  condition  to  judge 
distance.  She  ran  away  from  Don  as  if  he  had  been 
tied  and  reached  the  thicket  below  a  hundred  yards 
ahead  of  him.  And  when  Don  leaving  his  brave  pack 
far  up  the  slide  entered  the  thicket  the  lioness  came  out 
on  the  other  side  and  bounded  up  the  bare  slope  of  yellow 
shale. 

"  Shoot  ahead  of  her !  Lleadheroff!  Turn  her  back  1 " 
cried  Jones. 

With  the  word  I  threw  forward  the  Remington  and  let 
drive.     Following  the  bellow  of  the  rifle,  so  loud  in  that 


92  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

thin  air,  a  sharp,  harsh  report  cracked  up  from  below. 
A  puff  of  yellow  dust  rose  in  front  of  the  lioness.  I  was 
in  line,  but  too  far  ahead.  I  fired  again.  The  steel 
jacketed  bullet  hit  a  stone  and  spitefully  whined  away 
into  the  canyon.  I  tried  once  more.  This  time  I  struck 
close  to  the  lioness.  Disconcerted  by  a  cloud  of  dust 
rising  before  her  very  eyes  she  wheeled  and  ran  back. 

We  had  forgotten  Don  and  suddenly  he  darted  out  of 
the  thicket,  straight  up  the  slide.  Always,  in  every 
chase,  we  were  afraid  the  great  hound  would  run  to  meet 
his  death.  We  knew  it  was  coming  sometime.  When 
the  lioness  saw  him  and  stopped,  both  Jones  and  I  felt 
that  this  was  to  be  the  end  of  Don, 

"Shoot  her!  Shoot  her!"  cried  Jones.  "She'll  kill 
him!     She'll  kill  him!" 

As  I  knelt  on  the  rock  I  had  a  hard  contraction  of  my 
throat,  and  then  all  my  muscles  set  tight  and  rigid.  I 
pulled  the  trigger  of  my  automatic  once,  twice.  It  was 
wonderful  how  closely  the  two  bullets  followed  each  other, 
as  we  could  tell  by  the  almost  simultaneous  puffs  of  dust 
rising  from  under  the  beast's  nose.  She  must  have  been 
showered  and  stung  with  gravel,  for  she  bounded  off  to 
the  left  and  disappeared  in  the  cedars.  I  had  missed, 
but  the  shots  had  served  to  a  better  end  than  if  I  had 
killed  her. 

As  Don  raced  up  the  ground  where  a  moment  before 
a  battle  and  probably  death  had  awaited  him,  the  other 
hounds  burst  from  the  thicket.  With  that,  a  golden 
form  seemed  to  stand  out  from  the  green  of  the  cedar,  to 
move  and  to  rise. 

"She's  treed!  She's  treed!"  shouted  Jones.  "Go 
down  and  keep  her  there  while  I  follow." 

From  the  back  of  the  promontory  where  I  met  the 
main  wall,  I  let  myself  down  a  niche,  foot  here  and  there, 
a  hand  hard  on  the  soft  stone,  braced  knee  and  back  until 


ROPING  LIONS  IN  THE  GRAND  CANYON      93 

I  jumped  to  the  edge  of  the  slope.  The  scrub  oak  and 
manzanita  saved  me  many  a  fall.  I  set  some  stones 
rolling  and  I  beat  them  to  the  bottom.  Having  passed 
the  thicket,  I  bent  my  efforts  to  the  yellow  slide  and  when 
I  had  surmounted  it  my  breath  came  in  labored  pants. 
The  howling  of  the  hounds  guided  me  through  the  cedars. 

First  I  saw  Moze  in  the  branches  of  cedar  and  above 
him  the  lioness.  I  ran  out  into  a  little  open  patch  of 
stony  ground  at  the  end  of  which  the  tree  stood  leaning 
over  a  precipice.  In  truth  the  lioness  was  swaying  over 
a  chasm. 

Those  details  I  grasped  in  a  glance,  then  suddenly 
awoke  to  the  fact  that  the  lioness  was  savagely  snarling 
at  Moze. 

"Moze!     Moze!    Get  down!"   I  yelled. 

He  climbed  on  serenely.  He  was  a  most  exasperating 
dog.  I  screamed  at  him  and  hit  him  with  a  rock  big 
enough  to  break  his  bones.  He  kept  on  climbing.  Here 
was  a  predicament.  Moze  would  surely  get  to  the  lioness 
if  I  did  not  stop  him,  and  this  seemed  impossible.  It  was 
out  of  the  question  for  me  to  climb  after  him.  And  if  the 
lioness  jumped  she  would  have  to  pass  me  or  come 
straight  at  me.  So  I  slipped  down  the  safety  catch  on 
my  automatic  and  stood  ready  to  save  Moze  or  myself. 

The  lioness  with  a  show  of  fury  that  startled  me, 
descended  her  branch  a  few  steps,  and  reaching  below 
gave  Moze  a  sounding  smack  with  her  big  paw.  The 
hound  dropped  as  if  he  had  been  shot  and  hit  the  ground 
with  a  thud.     Whereupon  she  returned  to  her  perch. 

This  reassured  me  and  I  ran  among  the  dogs  and  caught 
Moze  already  starting  for  the  tree  again  and  tied  him, 
with  a  strap  I  always  carried,  to  a  small  bush  nearby. 
I  heard  the  yells  of  my  companions  and  looking  back 
over  the  tops  of  the  cedars  I  saw  Jim  riding  down  and 
higher  to  the  left  Jones  sliding,  falling,  running  at  a 


94  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

great  rate.  I  encouraged  them  to  keep  up  the  good 
work,  and  then  gave  my  attention  to  the  lioness. 

She  regarded  me  with  a  cold,  savage  stare  and  showed 
her  teeth.  I  repaid  this  incivility  on  her  part  by 
promptly  photographing  her  from  different  points. 

Jones  and  Jim  were  on  the  spot  before  I  expected  them 
and  both  were  dusty  and  dripping  with  sweat.  I  found 
to  my  surprise  that  my  face  was  wet  as  was  also  my 
shirt.  Jones  carried  two  lassos,  and  my  canteen,  which 
I  had  left  on  the  promontory. 

"Ain't  she  a  beauty?"  he  panted,  wiping  his  face. 
"Wait— till  I  get  my  breath." 

When  finally  he  walked  toward  the  cedar  the  lioness 
stood  up  and  growled  as  if  she  realized  the  entrance  of 
the  chief  actor  upon  the  scene.  Jones  cast  his  lasso 
apparently  to  try  her  out,  and  the  noose  spread  out  and 
fell  over  her  head.  As  he  tightened  the  rope  the  lioness 
backed  down  behind  a  branch. 

"Tie  the  dogs!"  yelled  Jones. 

"Quick!"  added  Jim.     "She's  goin  to  jump." 

Jim  had  only  time  to  aid  me  in  running  my  lasso  under 
the  collar  of  Don,  Sounder,  Jude  and  one  of  the  pups. 
I  made  them  fast  to  a  cedar.  I  got  my  hands  on  Ranger 
just  as  Moze  broke  his  strap.  I  grabbed  his  collar  and 
held  on. 

Right  there  was  where  trouble  commenced  for  me. 
Ranger  tussled  valiantly  and  Moze  pulled  me  all  over  the 
place.  Behind  me  I  heard  Jones'  roar  and  Jim's  yell; 
the  breaking  of  branches,  the  howling  of  the  other  dogs. 
Ranger  broke  away  from  me  and  so  enabled  me  to  get 
my  other  hand  on  the  neck  of  crazy  Moze.  On  more 
than  one  occasion  I  had  tried  to  hold  him  and  had  failed ; 
this  time  I  swore  I  would  do  it  if  he  rolled  me  over  the 
precipice.     As  to  that,  only  a  bush  saved  me. 

More  and  louder  roars  and  yells,  hoarser  howls  and 


ROPING  LIONS  IN  THE  GRAND  CANYON      95 

sharper  wrestling,  snapping  sounds  told  me  what  was 
going  on  while  I  tried  to  subdue  Moze.  I  had  a  grim 
thought  that  I  would  just  as  lief  have  had  hold  of  the 
lioness.  The  hound  presently  stopped  his  plunging 
which  gave  me  an  opportunity  to  look  about.  The  little 
space  was  smoky  with  a  smoke  of  dust.  I  saw  the  lioness 
stretched  out  with  one  lasso  around  a  bush  and  another 
around  a  cedar  with  the  end  in  the  hands  of  Jim.  He 
looked  as  if  he  had  dug  up  the  ground.  While  he  tied 
this  lasso  securely  Jones  proceeded  to  rope  the  dangerous 
front  paws. 

The  hounds  quieted  down  and  I  took  advantage  of  this 
absence  of  tumult  to  get  rid  of  Moze. 

"Pretty  livety,"  said  Jones,  spitting  gravel  as  I  walked 
up.  Sand  and  dust  lay  thick  in  his  beard  and  blackened 
his  face.     ' '  I  tell  you  she  made  us  root. ' ' 

Either  the  lioness  had  been  much  weakened  or  choked, 
or  Jones  had  unusual  luck,  for  we  muzzled  her  and  tied 
up  her  paws  in  short  order. 

"Where's  Ranger?"  I  asked  suddenly,  missing  him 
from  the  panting  hounds. 

"I  grabbed  him  by  the  heels  when  he  taclded  the  lion, 
and  I  gave  him  a  sling  somewheres,"  replied  Jim. 

Ranger  put  in  an  appearance  then  under  the  cedars 
limping  painfully. 

"Jim,  darn  me,  if  I  don't  believe  you  pitched  him  over 
the  precipice!"  said  Jones. 

Examination  proved  this  surmise  to  be  correct.  We 
saw  where  Ranger  had  slipped  over  a  twenty -foot  wall. 
If  he  had  gone  over  just  under  the  cedar  where  the  depth 
was  much  greater  he  would  never  have  come  back. 

"The  hounds  are  choking  with  dust  and  heat,"  I  said. 
When  I  poured  just  a  little  water  from  my  canteen  into 
the  crown  of  my  hat,  the  hounds  began  fighting  around 
and  over  me  and  spilled  the  water. 


96  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

"Behave,  you  coyotes!"  I  yelled.  Either  they  were 
insulted  or  fully  realized  the  exigency  of  the  situation, 
for  each  one  came  up  and  gratefully  lapped  every  drop 
of  his  portion, 

"Shore,  now  comes  the  hell  of  it,"  said  Jim  appearing 
with  a  long  pole.     "Packin'  the  critter  out." 

An  argument  arose  in  regard  to  the  best  way  up  the 
slope,  and  by  virtue  of  a  majority  we  decided  to  try  the 
direction  Jim  and  I  thought  best.  My  companions  led 
the  way,  carrying  the  lioness  suspended  on  the  pole.  I 
brought  up  the  rear,  packing  my  rifle,  camera,  lasso, 
canteen  and  a  chain. 

It  was  killing  work.  We  had  to  rest  every  few  steps. 
Often  we  would  fall.  Jim  laughed,  Jones  swore,  and  I 
groaned.  Sometimes  I  had  to  drop  my  things  to  help 
my  companions.  So  we  toiled  wearily  up  the  loose,  steep 
way. 

"What's  she  shakin'  like  that  for?"  asked  Jim 
suddenly. 

Jones  let  down  his  end  of  the  pole  and  turned  quickly. 
Little  tremors  quivered  over  the  lissome  body  of  the 
lioness. 

"She's  dying,"  cried  Jim,  jerking  out  the  stick  between 
her  teeth  and  slipping  off  the  wire  muzzle. 

Her  mouth  opened  and  her  frothy  tongue  lolled  out. 
Jones  pointed  to  her  quivering  sides  and  then  raised  her 
eyelids.    We  saw  the  eyes  already  glazing,  solemnly  fixed. 

"She's  gone,"  he  said. 

Very  soon  she  lay  inert  and  lifeless.  Then  we  sat 
beside  her  without  a  word,  and  we  could  hardly  for  the 
moment  have  been  more  stunned  and  heartbroken  if  it  had 
been  the  tragic  death  of  one  of  our  kind.  In  that  wild 
environment,  obsessed  by  the  desire  to  capture  those 
beautiful  cats  alive,  the  fateful  ending  of  the  successful 
chase  was  felt  out  of  all  proportion. 


ROPING  LIONS  IN  THE  GRAND  CANYON      97 

"Shore  she's  dead,"  said  Jim.  "And  wasn't  she  a 
beauty  ?     What  was  wrong  ? ' ' 

"The  heat  and  lack  of  water,"  replied  Jones.  "She 
choked.  What  idiots  we  were!  Why  didn't  we  think 
to  give  her  a  drink." 

So  we  passionately  protested  against  our  want  of  fore- 
thought, and  looked  again  and  again  with  the  hope  that 
she  might  come  to.  But  death  had  stilled  the  wild 
heart.  We  gave  up  presently,  still  did  not  move  on. 
We  were  exhausted,  and  all  the  while  the  hounds  lay 
panting  on  the  rocks,  the  bees  hummed,  the  flies  buzzed. 
The  red  colors  of  the  upper  walls  and  the  purple  shades 
of  the  lower  darkened  silently. 

VI 

"Shore  we  can't  set  here  all  night,"  said  Jim.  "Let's 
skin  the  lion  an'  feed  the  hounds." 

The  most  astonishing  thing  in  our  eventful  day  was 
the'  amount  of  meat  stowed  away  by  the  dogs.  Lion 
flesh  appealed  to  their  appetites.  If  hungry  Moze  had 
an  ounce  of  meat,  he  had  ten  pounds.  It  seemed  a  good 
opportunity  to  see  how  much  the  old  gladiator  could  eat ; 
and  Jim  and  I  cut  chunks  of  meat  as  fast  as  possible. 
Moze  gulped  them  with  absolute  unconcern  of  such  a 
thing  as  mastication.  At  length  he  reached  his  limit, 
possibly  for  the  first  time  in  his  life,  and  looking  longingly 
at  a  juicy  red  strip  Jim  held  out,  he  refused  it  with  man- 
ifest shame.     Then  he  wobbled  and  fell  down. 

We  called  to  him  as  we  started  to  climb  the  slope,  but 
he  did  not  come.  Then  the  business  of  conquering  that 
ascent  of  sliding  stone  absorbed  all  our  faculties  and 
strength.  Little  headway  could  we  have  made  had  it 
not  been  for  the  brush.  We  toiled  up  a  few  feet  only  to 
slide  back  and  so  it  went  on  until  we  were  weary  of  life. 


98  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

When  one  by  one  we  at  last  gained  the  rim  and  sat 
there  to  recover  breath,  the  sun  was  a  half  globe  of  fire 
burning  over  the  western  ramparts.  A  red  sunset  bathed 
the  canyon  in  crimson,  painting  the  walls,  tinting  the 
shadows  to  resemble  dropping  mists  of  blood.  It  was 
beautiful  and  enthralling  to  my  eyes,  but  I  turned  away 
because  it  wore  the  mantle  of  tragedy. 

Dispirited  and  worn  out,  we  trooped  into  camp  to  find 
Emett  and  a  steaming  supper.  Between  bites  the  three 
of  us  related  the  story  of  the  red  lioness.  Emett  whistled 
long  and  low  and  then  expressed  his  regret  in  no  light 
terms. 

"Roping  wild  steers  and  mustangs  is  play  to  this 
work,"  he  said  in  conclusion. 

I  was  too  tired  to  tease  our  captive  lions  that  evening ; 
even  the  glowing  camp-fire  tempted  me  in  vain,  and  I 
crawled  into  my  bed  with  eyes  already  glued  shut. 

A  heavy  weight  on  my  feet  stirred  me  from  oblivion. 
At  first,  when  only  half  awake,  I  could  not  realize  what 
had  fallen  on  my  bed,  then  hearing  a  deep  groan  I  knew 
Moze  had  come  back.  I  was  dropping  off  again  when  a 
strange,  low  sound  caused  my  eyes  to  open  wide.  The 
black  night  had  faded  to  the  gray  of  dawn.  The  sound 
I  recognized  at  once  to  be  the  Navajo's  morning  chant. 
I  lay  there  and  listened.  Soft  and  monotonous,  wild  and 
swelling,  but  always  low  and  strange,  the  savage  song  to 
the  break  of  day  was  exquisitely  beautiful  and  harmo- 
nious. I  wondered  what  the  literal  meaning  of  his  words 
could  have  been.  The  significance  needed  no  transla- 
tion. To  the  black  shadows  fading  away,  to  the  bright- 
ening of  the  gray  light,  to  the  glow  of  the  east,  to  the 
morning  sun,  to  the  Giver  of  Life — to  these  the  Indian 
chanted  his  prayer. 

Could  there  have  been  a  better  prayer  ?  Pagan  or  not, 
the  Navajo  with  his  forefathers  felt  the  spiritual  power 


ROPING  LIONS  IN  THE  GRAND  CANYON      99 

of  the  trees,  the  rocks,  the  light  and  sun,  and  he  prayed 
to  that  which  was  divinely  helpful  to  him  in  all  the  mys- 
tery of  his  unintelligible  life. 

We  did  not  crawl  out  that  morning  as  early  as  usual, 
for  it  was  to  be  a  day  of  rest.  When  we  did,  a  mooted 
question  arose — whether  we  or  the  hounds  were  the  more 
crippled.  Ranger  did  not  show  himself;  Don  could  just 
walk  and  that  was  all;  Moze  was  either  too  ftll  or  too 
tired  to  move;  Sounder  nursed  a  foot  and  Jude  favored 
her  lame  leg. 

After  lunch  we  brightened  up  somewhat  and  set  our- 
selves different  tasks.  Jones  had  misplaced  or  lost  his 
wire  and  began  to  turn  the  camp  topsy-turvy  in  his 
impatient  efforts  to  locate  it.  The  wire,  however,  was 
not  to  be  found.  This  was  a  calamity,  for,  as  we  asked 
each  other,  how  could  we  muzzle  lions  without  wire? 
Moreover,  a  half  dozen  heavy  leather  straps  which  I  had 
bought  in  Kanab  for  use  as  lion  collars  had  disappeared. 
We  had  only  one  collar  left,  the  one  that  Jones  had  put 
on  the  red  lioness. 

Whereupon  we  began  to  blame  each  other,  to  argue, 
to  grow  heated  and  naturally  from  that  to  become 
angry.  It  seems  a  fatality  of  campers  along  a  wild 
trail,  like  explorers  in  an  unknown  land,  to  be  prone 
to  fight.  If  there  is  an  explanation  of  this  singular 
fact,  it  must  be  that  men  at  such  time  lose  their  poise 
and  veneer  of  civilization ;  in  brief,  they  go  back.  At 
all  events  we  had  it  hot  and  heavy,  with  the  center  of 
attack  gradually  focusing  on  Jones,  and  as  he  was 
always  losing  something,  naturally  we  united  in  force 
against  him. 

Fortunately,  we  were  interrupted  by  yells  from  the 
Navajo  off  in  the  woods.  The  brushing  of  branches  and 
pounding  of  hoofs  preceded  his  appearance.  In  some 
remarkable  manner  he  had  gotten  a  bridle  on  Marc,  and 


100  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

from  the  way  the  big  stalHon  hurled  his  huge  bulk  over 
logs  and  through  thickets,  it  appeared  evident  he  meant 
to  usurp  Jim's  ambition  and  kill  the  Navajo.  Hearing 
Emett  yell,  the  Indian  turned  Marc  toward  camp.  The 
horse  slowed  down  when  he  neared  the  glade  and  tried 
to  buck.  But  Navvy  kept  his  head  up.  With  that 
Marc  seemed  to  give  way  to  ungovernable  rage  and 
plunged  right  through  camp ;  he  knocked  over  the  dogs' 
shelter  and  thundered  down  the  ridge. 

Now  the  Navajo  ;with  the  bridle  in  his  hand  was 
thoroughly  at  home.  He  was  getting  his  revenge  on 
Marc,  and  he  would  have  kept  his  seat  on  a  wild  mustang, 
but  Marc  swerved  suddenly  under  a  low  branch  of  a  pine, 
sweeping  the  Indian  off. 

When  Navvy  did  not  rise  we  began  to  fear  he  had  been 
seriously  hurt,  perhaps  killed,  and  we  ran  to  where  he 
lay. 

Face  downward,  hands  outstretched,  with  no  move- 
ment of  body  or  muscle,  he  certainly  appeared  dead. 

"Badly  hurt,"  said  Emett,  "probably  back  broken. 
I  have  seen  it  before  from  just  such  accidents." 

"Oh  no!"  cried  Jones,  and  I  felt  so  deeply  I  could  not 
speak.  Jim,  who  always  wanted  Navvy  to  be  a  dead 
Indian,  looked  profoundly  sorry. 

"He's  a  dead  Indian,  all  right,"  replied  Emett. 

We  rose  from  our  stooping  postures  and  stood  around, 
uncertain  and  deeply  grieved,  until  a  mournful  groan 
from  Navvy  afforded  us  much  relief. 

"That's  your  dead  Indian,"  exclaimed  Jones. 

Emett  stooped  again  and  felt  the  Indian's  back  and  got 
in  reward  another  mournful  groan. 

"It's  his  back,"  said  Emett,  and  true  to  his  ruling 
passion,  forever  to  minister  to  the  needs  of  horses,  men, 
and  things,  he  began  to  rub  the  Indian  and  call  for  the 
liniment. 


TREED   LION 


TREED    LIOX 


ROPING  LIONS  IN  THE  GRAND  CANYON    loi 

Jim  went  to  fetch  it,  while  I,  still  believing  the  Navvy 
to  be  dangerously  hurt,  knelt  by  him  and  pulled  up  his 
shirt,  exposing  the  hollow  of  his  brown  back. 

"Here  we  are,"  said  Jim,  returning  on  the  run  with 
the  bottle. 

"Pour  some  on,"  replied  Emett. 

Jim  removed  the  cork  and  soused  the  liniment  all  over 
the  Indian's  back. 

"Don't  waste  it,"  remonstrated  Emett,  starting  to 
rub  Navvy's  back. 

Then  occurred  a  most  extraordinary  thing.  A  convul- 
sion seemed  to  quiver  through  the  Indian's  body;  he  rose 
at  a  single  leap,  and  uttering  a  wild,  piercing  yell  broke 
into  a  run.  I  never  saw  an  Indian  or  anybody  else  run 
so  fleetly.     Yell  after  yell  pealed  back  to  us. 

Absolutely  dumfounded  we  all  gazed  at  each  other. 

"That's  your  dead  Indian!"  ejaculated  Jim. 

"What  the  hell!"  exclaimed  Emett,  who  seldom  used 
such  language, 

' '  Look  here ! "  cried  Jones,  grabbing  the  bottle.  ' '  See ! 
Don't  you  see  it?" 

Jim  fell  face  downward  and  began  to  shake. 

"What?"  shouted  Emett  and  I  together. 

"Turpentine,  you  idiots!  Turpentine!  Jim  brought 
the  wrong  bottle!" 

In  another  second  three  more  forms  lay  stretched  out 
on  the  sward,  and  the  forest  rang  with  sounds  of  mirth. 

VII 

That  night  the  wind  switched  and  blew  cold  from  the 
north,  and  so  strong  that  the  camp-fire  roared  like  a 
furnace.  "More  snow"  was  the  verdict  of  all  of  us,  and 
in  view  of  this,  I  invited  the  Navajo  to  share  my 
tent. 
8 


102  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

"Sleepie-me,"  I  said  to  him. 

"Me  savvy,"  he  replied  and  forthwith  proceeded  to 
make  his  bed  with  me. 

Much  to  my  surprise  all  my  comrades  raised  protesta- 
tions, which  struck  me  as  being  singularly  selfish  con- 
sidering they  would  not  be  inconvenienced  in  any  way. 

"Why  not?"  I  asked.  "It's  a  cold  night.  There'll  be 
frost  if  not  snow." 

"Shore  you'll  get  'em,"  said  Jim. 

"There  never  was  an  Indian  that  didn't  have  'em," 
added  Jones. 

"What?"  I  questioned. 

They  made  mysterious  signs  that  rather  augmented 
my  ignorance  as  to  what  I  might  get  from  the  Indian,  but 
in  no  wise  changed  my  mind.  When  I  went  to  bed  I 
had  to  crawl  over  Navvy.  Moze  lay  at  my  feet  as  usual 
and  he  growled  so  deep  that  I  could  not  but  think  he, 
too,  resented  the  addition  to  my  small  tent. 

"Mista  Gay!"  came  in  the  Indian's  low  voice. 

"Well  Navvy?"  I  asked. 

'  *  Sleepie — sleepie  ? ' ' 

"Yes,  Navvy,  sleepy  and  tired.     Are  you?" 

"Me  savvy — mucha  sleepie — mucha — no  bueno." 

I  did  not  wonder  at  his  feeling  sleepy,  tired  and  bad. 
He  did  not  awaken  me  in  the  morning,  for  when  my  eyes 
unclosed  the  tent  was  light  and  he  had  gone.  I  found 
my  companions  up  and  doing. 

We  had  breakfast  and  got  into  our  saddles  by  the  time 
the  sun,  a  red  ball  low  down  among  the  pines,  began  to 
brighten  and  turn  to  gold.  No  snow  had  fallen  but  a 
thick  frost  encrusted  the  ground.  The  hounds,  wearing 
cloth  moccasins,  which  plainly  they  detested,  trotted  in 
front.  Don  showed  no  effects  of  his  great  run  down  the 
sliding  slope  after  the  red  lioness;  it  was  one  of  his  re- 
markable   qualities    that   he   recuperated    so    quickly. 


ROPING  LIONS  IN  THE  GRAND  CANYON    103 

Ranger  was  a  little  stiff,  and  Sounder  favored  his  injured 
foot.     The  others  were  as  usual. 

Jones  led  down  the  big  hollow  to  which  he  kept 
after  we  had  passed  the  edge  of  the  pines ;  then  mark- 
ing a  herd  of  deer  ahead,  he  turned  his  horse  up  the 
bank. 

We  breasted  the  ridge  and  jogged  toward  the  cedar 
forest,  which  we  entered  without  having  seen  the  hounds 
show  interest  in  anything.  Under  the  cedars  in  the 
soft  yellow  dust  we  crossed  lion  tracks,  many  of  them, 
but  too  old  to  carry  a  scent.  Even  North  Hollow  with 
its  regular  beaten  runway  failed  to  win  a  murmur  from 
the  pack. 

"Spread  out,"  said  Jones,  "and  look  for  tracks.  I'll 
keep  the  center  and  hold  in  the  hounds." 

Signalling  occasionally  to  one  another  we  crossed 
almost  the  breadth  of  the  cedar  forest  to  its  western  end, 
where  the  open  sage  flats  inclined  to  the  rim.  In  one  of 
those  flats  I  came  upon  a  broken  sage  bush,  the  grass 
being  thick  thereabout.  I  discovered  no  track  but  dis- 
mounted and  scrutinized  the  surroundings  carefully.  A 
heavy  body  had  been  dragged  across  the  sage,  crushing 
it.  The  ends  of  broken  bushes  were  green,  the  leaves 
showed  bruises. 

I  began  to  feel  like  Don  when  he  scented  game.  Lead- 
ing my  mustang  I  slowly  proceeded  across  the  open, 
guided  by  an  occasional  down-trodden  bush  or  tuft  of 
grass.  As  I  neared  the  cedars  again  Foxie  snorted. 
Under  the  first  tree  I  found  a  ghastly  bunch  of  red 
bones,  a  spread  of  grayish  hairs  and  a  split  skull.  The 
bones,  were  yet  wet ;  two  long  doe  ears  were  still  warm. 
Then  I  saw  big  lion  tracks  in  the  dust  and  even  a  well 
pressed  imprint  of  a  lion's  body  where  he  had  rolled  or 
lain. 

The  two  yells  I  sent  ringing  into  the  forest  were  pro- 


I04  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

ductive  of  interesting  results.  Answers  came  from  near 
and  far.  Then,  what  with  my  calhng  and  the  repHes, 
the  forest  rang  so  steadily  with  shrill  cries  that  the  echoes 
had  no  chance  to  follow. 

An  elephant  in  the  jungle  could  not  have  caused  more 
crashing  and  breaking  of  brush  than  did  Emett  as  he 
made  his  way  to  me.  He  arrived  from  the  forest  just 
as  Jim  galloped  across  the  fiat.  Mutely  I  held  up  the 
two  long  ears. 

"Get  on  your  horse!"  cried  Jim  after  one  quick  glance 
at  the  spread  of  bones  and  hair. 

It  was  well  he  said  that,  for  I  might  have  been  left 
behind.  I  ran  to  Foxie  and  vaulted  upon  him.  A  flash 
of  yellow  appeared  among  the  sage  and  a  string  of  yelps 
split  the  air. 

"It's  Don!"  yelled  Jim. 

Well  we  knew  that.  What  a  sight  to  see  him  running 
straight  for  us!  He  passed,  a  savage  yellow  wolf  in  his 
ferocity,  and  disappeared  like  a  gleam  under  the  gloomy 
cedars. 

We  spurred  after  him.  The  other  hounds  sped  by. 
Jones  closed  in  on  us  from  the  left,  and  in  a  few  minutes 
we  were  strung  out  behind  Emett,  fighting  the  branches, 
dodging  and  swerving,  hugging  the  saddle,  and  always 
sending  out  our  sharp  yells. 

The  race  was  furious  but  short.  The  three  of  us  com- 
ing up  together  found  Emett  dismounted  on  the  extreme 
end  of  West  Point. 

"The  hounds  have  gone  down,"  he  said,  pointing  to 
the  runway. 

We  all  listened  to  the  meaning  bays. 

"Shore  they've  got  him  up!"  asserted  Jim.  "Like 
as  not  they  found  him  under  the  rim  here,  sleeping  off 
his  gorge.  Now  fellows,  I'll  go  down.  It  might  be  a 
good  idea  for  you  to  spread  along  the  rim. ' ' 


TREED    LION 


HlDIN'd 


ROPING  LIONS  IN  THE  GRAND  CANYON    105 

With  that  we  turned  our  horses  eastward  and  rode  as 
close  to  the  rim  as  possible.  Clumps  of  cedars  and  deep 
fissures  often  forced  us  to  circle  them.  The  hounds, 
traveling  under  the  walls  below,  kept  pace  with  us  and 
then  forged  ahead,  which  fact  caused  Jones  to  dispatch 
Emett  on  the  gallop  for  the  next  runway  at  North  Hollow. 

Soon  Jones  bade  me  dismount  and  make  my  way  out 
upon  one  of  the  promontories,  while  he  rode  a  little 
farther  on.  As  I  tied  my  mustang  I  heard  the  hounds, 
faint  and  far  beneath.  I  waded  through  the  sage  and 
cedar  to  the  rim. 

Cape  after  cape  jutted  out  over  the  abyss.  Some  were 
very  sharp  and  bare,  others  covered  with  cedar;  some 
tottering  crags  with  a  crumbling  bridge  leading  to  their 
rims ;  and  some  ran  down  like  giant  steps.  From  one  of 
these  I  watched  below.  The  slope  here  under  the  wall 
was  like  the  side  of  a  rugged  mountain.  Somewhere 
down  among  the  dark  patches  of  cedar  and  the  great 
blocks  of  stone  the  hounds  were  hunting  the  lion,  but 
I  could  not  see  one  of  them. 

The  promontory  I  had  chosen  had  a  split,  and  choked 
as  this  was  with  brush,  rock,  and  shale,  it  seemed  a  place 
where  I  might  climb  down.  Once  started,  I  could  not 
turn  back,  and  sliding,  clinging  to  what  afforded,  I 
worked  down  the  crack.  A  wall  of  stone  hid  the  sky 
from  me  part  of  the  way.  I  came  out  a  hundred  feet 
below  upon  a  second  promontory  of  huge  slabs  of  yellow 
stone.  Over  these  I  clambered,  to  sit  with  my  feet 
swinging  over  the  last  one. 

Straight  before  my  gaze  yawned  the  awful  expanse  of 
the  canyon.  In  the  soft  morning  light  the  red  mesas,  the 
yellow  walls,  the  black  domes  were  less  harsh  than  in  the 
full  noonday  sun,  purer  than  in  the  tender  shadow  of 
twilight.  Below  me  were  slopes  and  slides  divided  by 
ravines  full  of  stones  as  large  as  houses,  with  here  and 


io6  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

there  a  lonesome  leaning  crag,  giving  irresistible  proof 
of  the  downward  trend,  of  the  rolling,  weathering  ruins 
of  the  rim.  Above  the  wall  bulged  out  full  of  fissures, 
ragged  and  rotten  shelves,  toppling  columns  of  yellow 
limestone,  beaded  with  quartz  and  colored  by  wild 
flowers  wonderfully  growing  in  crannies. 

Wild  and  rare  as  was  this  environment,  I  gave  it  but 
a  glance  and  a  thought.  The  bay  of  the  hounds  caused 
me  to  bend  sharp  and  eager  eyes  to  the  open  spaces  of 
stone  and  slide  below.  Luck  was  mine  as  usual;  the 
hounds  were  working  up  toward  me.  How  I  strained 
my  sight !  Hearing  a  single  cry  I  looked  eastward  to  see 
Jones  silhouetted  against  the  blue  on  a  black  promontory. 
He  seemed  a  giant  primeval  man  overlooking  the  ruin  of 
a  former  world.     I  signalled  him  to  make  for  my  point. 

Black  Ranger  hove  in  sight  at  the  top  of  a  yellow  slide. 
He  was  at  fault  but  hunting  hard.  Jude  and  Sounder 
bayed  off  to  his  left.  I  heard  Don's  clear  voice,  permeat- 
ing the  thin,  cool  air,  seemingly  to  leave  a  quality  of 
wildness  upon  it;  yet  I  could  not  locate  him.  Ranger 
disappeared.  Then  for  a  time  I  only  heard  Jim.  Moze 
was  next  to  appear  and  he,  too,  was  upward  bound.  A 
jumble  of  stone  hid  him,  and  then  Ranger  again  showed. 
Evidently  he  wanted  to  get  around  the  bottom  of  a  low 
crag,  for  he  jumped  and  jumped  only  to  fall  back. 

Quite  naturally  my  eyes  searched  that  crag.  Stretched 
out  upon  the  top  of  it  was  the  long,  slender  body  of  a  lion . 

"Hi!  hi!  hi!  hi!  hi!"  I  yelled  till  my  lungs  failed  me. 

'  *  Where  are  you  ? ' '   came  from  above. 

"Here!  Here!"  I  cried  seeing  Jones  on  the  rim. 
"Come  down.  Climb  down  the  crack.  The  lion  is 
here;  on  top  of  that  round  crag.  He's  fooled  the  hounds 
and  they  can't  find  him." 

"I  see  him!  I  see  him!"  yelled  Jones.  Then  he  roared 
out  a  single  call  for  Emett  that  pealed  like  a  clear  clarion 


ROPING  LIONS  IN  THE  GRAND  CANYON    107 

along  the  curved  broken  rim  wall,  opening  up  echoes 
which  clapped  like  thunder. 

While  Jones  clattered  down  I  turned  again  to  the  lion. 
He  lay  with  head  hidden  under  a  little  shelf  and  he  moved 
not  a  muscle.  What  a  place  for  him  to  choose !  But  for 
my  accidental  venturing  down  the  broken  fragments  and 
steps  of  the  rim  he  could  have  remained  safe  from  pursuit. 

Suddenly,  right  under  my  feet,  Don  opened  his  string 
of  yelps.  I  could  not  see  him  but  decided  he  must  be 
above  the  lion  on  the  crag.  I  leaned  over  as  far  as  I 
dared.  At  that  moment  among  the  varied  and  thrilling 
sounds  about  me  I  became  vaguely  aware  of  hard,  pant- 
ing breaths,  like  coughs  somewhere  in  my  vicinity.  As 
Jones  had  set  in  motion  bushels  of  stone  and  had  already 
scraped  his  feet  over  the  rocks  behind  me  I  thought  the 
forced  respiration  came  from  him.  When  I  turned  he 
was  yet  far  off — too  far  for  me  to  hear  him  breathe.  I 
thought  this  circumstance  strange  but  straightway 
forgot  it. 

On  the  moment  from  my  right  somewhere  Don  pealed 
out  his  bugle  blast,  and  immediately  after  Sounder  and 
Jude  joining  him,  sent  up  the  thrice  Y\^elcome  news  of  a 
treed  lion. 

"There  're  two!  There  're  two!"  I  yelled  to  Jones, 
now  working  down  to  my  right. 

"He's  treed  down  here.  I've  got  him  spotted!"  re- 
plied Jones.  "You  stay  there  and  watch  your  lion. 
Yell  for  Emett." 

Signal  after  signal  for  Emett  earned  no  response, 
though  Jim  far  below  to  the  left  sent  me  an  answer. 

The  next  few  minutes,  or  more  likely  half  an  hour, 
passed  with  Jones  and  me  separated  from  each  other  by 
a  wall  of  broken  stone,  waiting  impatiently  for  Jim  and 
Emett,  while  the  hounds  bayed  one  lion  and  I  watched 
the  other. 


io8  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

Calmness  was  impossible  under  sueh  circumstances. 
No  man  could  have  gazed  into  that  marvel  of  color  and 
distance,  with  wild  life  about  him,  with  wild  sounds 
ringing  in  his  ears,  without  yielding  to  the  throb  and  race 
of  his  wild  blood. 

Emett  did  not  come.  Jim  had  not  answered  a  yell  for 
minutes.  No  doubt  he  needed  his  breath.  He  came  into 
sight  just  to  the  left  of  our  position,  and  he  ran  down  one 
side  of  the  ravine  to  toil  up  the  other.  *■  I  hailed  him, 
Jones  hailed  him  and  the  hounds  hailed  him. 

"Steer  to  your  left  Jim!"  I  called.  "There's  a  lion 
on  that  crag  above  you.  He  might  jump.  Round  the 
cliff  to  the  left — Jones  is  there!" 

The  most  painful  task  it  was  for  me  to  sit  there  and 
listen  to  the  sound  rising  from  below  without  being  able 
to  see  what  happened.  My  lion  had  peeped  up  once, 
and,  seeing  me,  had  crouched  closer  to  his  crag,  evidently 
believing  he  was  unseen,  which  obviously  made  it  im- 
perative for  me  to  keep  my  seat  and  hold  him  there  as 
long  as  possible. 

But  to  hear  the  various  exclamations  thrilled  me 
enough. 

"Hyar  Moze — get  out  of  that.  Catch  him — hold 
him!  Damn  these  rotten  limbs.  Hand  me  a  pole — 
Jones,  back  down — back  down!  he's  comin' — Hi!  Hi! 
Whoop!  Boo — o!  There — now  you've  got  him !  No,  no; 
it  slipped !  Now !  Look  out,  Jim,  from  under — he's  going 
to  jump!" 

A  smashing  and  rattling  of  loose  stones  and  a  fiery 
burst  of  yelps  with  trumpet-like  yells  followed  close  upon 
Jones'  last  words.  Then  two  yellow  streaks  leaped 
down  the  ravine.  The  first  was  the  lion,  the  second  was 
Don.  The  rest  of  the  pack  came  tumbling  helter-skelter 
in  their  wake.  Following  them  raced  Jim  in  long  kanga- 
roo leaps,  with  Jones  in  the  rear,  running  for  all  he  was 


ROPING  LIONS  IN  THE  GRAND  CANYON    109 

worth.  The  animated  and  musical  procession  passed  up 
out  of  the  ravine  and  gradually  lengthened  as  the  lion 
gained  and  Jones  lost,  till  it  passed  altogether  from  my 
jealous  sight. 

On  the  other  side  of  the  ridge  of  cedars  the  hounds 
treed  their  quarry  again,  as  was  easy  to  tell  by  their 
change  from  sharp  intermittent  yelping  to  an  unbroken, 
full,  deep  chorus.  Then  presently  all  quieted  down,  and 
for  long  moments  at  a  time  the  still  silence  enfolded  the 
slope.  Shouts  now  and  then  floated  up  on  the  wind  and 
an  occasional  bark. 

I  sat  there  for  an  hour  by  my  watch,  though  it  seemed 
only  a  few  minutes,  and  all  that  time  my  lion  lay  crouched 
on  his  crag  and  never  moved. 

I  looked  across  the  curve  of  the  canyon  to  the  purple 
breaks  of  the  Siwash  and  the  shaggy  side  of  Buckskin 
Mountain  and  far  beyond  to  where  Kanab  Canyon 
opened  its  dark  mouth,  and  farther  still  to  the  Pink  Cliffs 
of  Utah,  weird  and  dim  in  the  distance. 

Something  swelled  within  my  breast  at  the  thought 
that  for  the  time  I  was  part  of  that  wild  scene.  The  eye 
of  an  eagle  soaring  above  would  have  placed  me  as  well 
as  my  lion  among  the  few  living  things  in  the  range  of 
his  all-compassing  vision.  Therefore,  all  was  mine,  not 
merely  the  lion— for  he  was  only  the  means  to  an  end — 
but  the  stupendous,  unnamable  thing  beneath  me,  this 
chasm  that  hid  mountains  in  the  shades  of  its  cliffs,  and 
the  granite  tombs,  some  gleaming  pale,  passionless,  others 
red  and  warm,  painted  by  a  master  hand ;  and  the  wind- 
caves,  dark-portaled  under  their  mist  curtains,  and  all 
that  was  deep  and  far  off,  unapproachable,  tmattainable, 
of  beauty  exceeding,  dressed  in  ever-changing  hues,  was 
mine  by  right  of  presence,  by  right  of  the  eye  to  see  and 
the  mind  to  keep. 

"Waa-hoo!" 


no  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

The  cry  lifted  itself  out  of  the  depths.  I  saw  Jones  on 
the  ridge  of  cedars. 

"All  right  here — have  you  kept  your  line  there?"  he 
yelled. 

"All's  well — come  along,  come  along,"  I  replied. 

I  watched  them  coming,  and  all  the  while  my  lion 
never  moved.  The  hounds  reached  the  base  of  the  cliif 
under  me,  but  they  could  not  find  the  lion,  though  they 
scented  him,  for  they  kept  up  a  continual  baying.  Jim 
got  up  to  the  shelf  under  me  and  said  they  had  tied  up  the 
lion  and  left  him  below.     Jones  toiled  slowly  up  the  slope. 

"Some  one  ought  to  stay  down  there;  he  might  jump," 
I  called  in  warning. 

"That  crag  is  forty  feet  high  on  this  side,"  he  replied. 

I  clambered  back  over  the  uneven  mass,  let  myself 
down  between  the  boulders  and  crawled  under  a  dark 
ridge,  and  finally  with  Jim  catching  my  rifle  and  camera 
and  then  lending  his  shoulders,  I  reached  the  bench  be- 
low, Jones  came  puffing  around  a  corner  of  the  cliff, 
and  soon  all  three  of  us  with  the  hounds  stood  out  on  the 
rocky  shelf  with  only  a  narrow  space  between  us  and  the 
crouching  lion. 

Before  we  had  a  moment  to  speak,  much  less  form  a 
plan  of  attack,  the  lion  rose,  spat  at  us  defiantly,  and 
deliberately  jumped  off  the  crag.  We  heard  him  strike 
with  a  frightful  thud. 

Surprise  held  us  dumb.  To  take  the  leap  to  the  slope 
below  seemed  beyond  any  beast  not  endowed  with 
wings.  We  saw  the  lion  bounding  down  the  identical 
trail  which  the  other  lion  had  taken.  Jones  came  out  of 
his  momentary  indecision. 

' '  Hold  the  dogs !  Call  them  back ! "  he  yelled  hoarsely. 
"They'll  kill  the  lion  we  tied!    They'll  kill  him!" 

The  hounds  had  scattered  off  the  bench  here  and  there, 
everywhere,  to  come  together  on  the  trail  below.     Al- 


ROPING  LIONS  IN  THE  GRAND  CANYON    in 

ready  they  were  in  full  cry  with  the  matchless  Don  at 
the  fore.  Manifestly  to  call  them  back  was  an  injustice, 
as  well  as  impossible.  In  ten  seconds  they  were  out  of 
sight. 

In  silence  we  waited,  each  listening,  each  feeling  the 
tragedy  of  the  situation,  each  praying  that  they  would 
pass  by  the  poor,  helpless,  bound  lion.  Suddenly  the 
regular  baying  swelled  to  a  burst  of  savage,  snarling  fury, 
such  as  the  pack  made  in  a  vicious  fight.  This  ceased — 
short  silence  ensued;  Don's  sharp  voice  woke  the  echoes, 
then  the  regular  baying  continued. 

As  with  one  thought,  we  all  sat  down.  Painful  as  the 
certainty  was  it  was  not  so  painful  as  that  listening, 
hoping  suspense. 

"Shore  they  can't  be  blamed,"  said  Jim  finally. 
"Bumping  their  nose  into  a  tied  lion  that  way — how'd 
they  know?" 

"Who  could  guess  the  second  lion  would  jump  off  that 
quick  and  run  back  to  our  captive?"  burst  out  Jones. 

"Shore  we  might  have  knowed  it,"  replied  Jim. 
"Well,  I'm  goin'  after  the  pack." 

He  gathered  up  his  lasso  and  strode  off  the  bench. 
Jones  said  he  would  climb  back  to  the  rim,  and  I  fol- 
lowed Jim. 

Why  the  lions  ran  in  that  particular  direction  was  clear 
to  me  when  I  saw  the  trail.  It  was  a  runway,  smooth 
and  hard  packed.  I  trudged  along  it  with  rather  less 
enjoyment  than  on  any  trail  I  had  ever  followed  to  the 
canyon.  Jim  waited  for  me  over  the  cedar  ridge  and 
showed  me  where  the  captive  lion  lay  dead.  The 
hounds  had  not  torn  him.  They  had  killed  him  and 
passed  on  after  the  other. 

"He  was  a  fine  fellow,  all  of  seven  feet,  we'll  skin  him 
on  our  way  back." 

Only  dogged  determination  coupled  with  a  sense  of 


112  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

duty  to  the  hounds  kept  us  on  that  trail.  For  the  time 
being  enthusiasm  had  been  submerged.  But  we  had  to 
follow  the  pack. 

Jim,  less  weighted  down  and  perhaps  less  discouraged, 
forged  ahead  up  and  down.  The  sun  had  burned  all  the 
morning  coolness  out  of  the  air.  I  perspired  and  panted 
and  began  to  grow  weary.  Jim's  signal  called  me  to 
hurry.  I  took  to  a  trot  and  came  upon  him  and  the 
hounds  under  a  small  cedar.  The  lion  stood  among  the 
dead  branches.  His  sides  where  shaking  convulsively 
and  his  short  breaths  could  be  plainly  heard.  He  had 
the  most  blazing  eyes  and  most  untamed  expression  of 
any  wild  creature  I  have  ever  seen ;  and  this  amazed  me 
considering  I  had  kept  him  on  a  crag  for  over  an  hour, 
and  had  come  to  look  upon  him  as  my  own. 

"  What'll  we  do,  Jim,  now  that  we  have  him  treed?" 

"Shore,  we'll  tie  him  up,"  declared  Jim. 

The  lion  stayed  in  the  cedar  long  enough  for  me  to 
photograph  him  twice,  then  he  leaped  down  again  and 
took  to  his  back  trail.  We  followed  as  fast  as  we  could, 
soon  to  find  that  the  hounds  had  put  him  up  another 
cedar.  From  this  he  jumped  dow^n  among  the  dogs, 
scattered  them  as  if  they  had  been  so  many  leaves,  and 
bounded  up  the  slope  out  of  sight. 

I  laid  aside  my  rifle  and  camera  and  tried  to  keep  up 
with  Jim.  The  lion  ran  straight  up  the  slope  and  treed 
again  under  the  wall.  Before  we  covered  half  the  dis- 
tance he  was  on  the  go  once  more,  flying  down  in  clouds 
of  dust. 

"Don  is  makin'  him  hump,"  said  Jim. 

And  that  alone  was  enough  to  spur  us  on.  We  would 
reward  the  noble  hound  if  we  had  the  staying  power. 
Don  and  his  pack  ran  westward  this  time,  and  along  a 
mile  of  the  beaten  trail  put  him  up  two  more  trees. 
But  these  we  could  not  see  and  judged  only  by  the  sound. 


A    DRINK    OF    COLD    GRANITE    WATER    UNDER    THE    RIM 


WHICH    I^    THK    PIUTE? 


ROPING  LIONS  IN  THE  GRAND  CANYON    113 

' '  Look  there ! ' '  cried  Jim.  ' '  Dam  me  if  he  ain't  comin' 
right  at  us." 

It  was  true.  Ahead  of  us  the  lion  appeared,  loping 
wearily.  We  stopped  in  our  tracks  undecided.  Jim 
drew  his  revolver.  Once  or  twice  the  lion  disappeared 
behind  stones  and  cedars.  When  he  sighted  us  he 
stopped,  looked  back,  then  again  turning  toward  us,  he 
left  the  trail  to  plunge  down.  He  had  barely  got  out  of 
sight  when  old  Don  came  pattering  along  the  trail ;  then 
Ranger  leading  the  others.  Don  did  not  even  put  his 
nose  to  the  ground  where  the  lion  had  switched,  but  leaped 
aside  and  went  down.  Here  the  long  section  of  slope 
between  the  lion's  runway  and  the  second  wall  had  been 
weathered  and  worn,  racked  and  convulsed  into  deep 
ravines,  with  ridges  between.  We  climbed  and  fell  and 
toiled  on,  always  with  the  bay  of  the  hounds  in  our  ears. 
We  leaped  fissures,  we  loosened  avalanches,  rolling  them 
to  crash  and  roar  below,  and  send  long,  rumbling  echoes 
out  into  the  canyon. 

A  gorge  in  the  yellow  rock  opened  suddenly  before  us. 
We  stood  at  the  constricted  neck  of  one  of  the  great 
splits  in  the  second  wall.  The  side  opposite  was  almost 
perpendicular,  and  formed  of  mass  on  mass  of  broken 
stones.  This  was  a  weathered  slope  on  a  gigantic  scale. 
Points  of  cliffs  jutted  out;  caves  and  cracks  lined  the 
wall. 

"This  is  a  rough  place,"  said  Jim;  "but  a  lion  could 
get  over  the  second  wall  here,  an'  I  believe  a  man  could 
too.  The  hounds  seemed  to  be  back  further  toward 
where  the  split  narrows." 

Through  densely  massed  cedars  and  thickets  of  prickly 
thorns  we  wormed  our  way  to  come  out  at  the  neck  of 
the  gorge. 

"There  ye  are!"  sang  out  Jim.  The  hounds  were  all 
on  a  flat  shelf  some  few  feet  below  us,  and  on  a  sharp 


114  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

point  of  rock  close  by,  but  too  far  for  the  dogs  to  reach, 
crouched  the  lion.  He  was  gasping  and  frothing  at  the 
mouth. 

"Shore  if  he'd  only  stay  there — "  said  Jim. 

He  loosened  his  lasso,  and  stationing  himself  just 
above  the  tired  beast  he  prepared  to  cast  down  the  loop. 
The  first  throw  failed  of  its  purpose,  but  the  rope  hit  the 
lion.  He  got  up  painfully  it  seemed,  and  faced  the 
dogs.  That  way  barred  he  turned  to  the  cliff.  Almost 
opposite  him  a  shelf  leaned  out.  He  looked  at  it,  then 
paced  to  and  fro  like  a  beast  in  a  cage. 

He  looked  again  at  the  hounds,  then  up  at  us,  all 
around,  and  finally  concentrated  his  attention  on  the 
shelf;  his  long  length  sagged  in  the  middle,  he  stretched 
low,  his  muscles  gathered  and  strung,  and  he  sprang  like 
a  tawny  streak. 

His  aim  was  true,  the  whole  forepart  of  his  body 
landed  on  the  shelf  and  he  hung  there.  Then  he  slipped. 
We  distinctly  heard  his  claws  scrape  the  hard,  smooth 
rock.  He  fell,  turning  a  somersault,  struck  twenty  feet 
below  on  the  rough  slant,  bounded  from  that  to  fall  down, 
striking  suddenly  and  then  to  roll,  a  yellow  wheel  that 
lodged  behind  a  rock  and  stretched  out  to  move  no  more. 

The  hounds  were  silent;  Jim  and  I  were  silent;  a  few 
little  stones  rattled,  then  were  still.  The  dead  silence  of 
the  canyon  seemed  to  pay  tribute  to  the  lion's  unquench- 
able spirit  and  to  the  freedom  he  had  earned  to  the  last. 


VHI 

How  long  Jim  and  I  sat  there  we  never  knew.  The 
second  tragedy,  not  so  pitiful  but  as  heart  sickening  as 
the  first,  crushed  our  spirits. 

"Shore  he  was  a  game  lion,"  said  Jim.  "An'  I'll  have 
to  get  his  skin." 


ROPING  LIONS  IN  THE  GRAND  CANYON    115 

"I'm  all  in,  Jim.  I  couldn't  climb  out  of  that  hole." 
I  said. 

"You  needn't.  Rest  a  little,  take  a  good  drink  an' 
leave  your  canteen  here  for  me ;  then  get  your  things  back 
there  on  the  trail  an'  climb  out.  We're  not  far  from 
West  Point.  I'll  go  back  after  the  first  lion's  skin  an' 
then  climb  straight  up.  You  lead  my  horse  to  the  point 
where  you  came  off  the  rim," 

He  clattered  along  the  gorge  knocking  the  stones  and 
started  down.  I  watched  him  letting  himself  over  the 
end  of  the  huge  slabs  until  he  passed  out  of  my  sight.  A 
good,  long  drink  revived  me  and  I  began  the  ascent. 

From  that  moment  on  time  did  not  matter  to  me.  I 
forgot  all  about  it.  I  felt  only  my  leaden  feet  and  my 
laboring  chest  and  dripping  skin.  I  did  not  even  notice 
the  additional  weight  of  my  rifle  and  camera  though  they 
must  have  overburdened  me.  I  kept  my  eyes  on  the 
lion  runway  and  plunged  away  with  short  steps.  To 
look  at  these  towering  walls  would  have  been  to  sur- 
render. 

At  last,  stumbling,  bursting,  sick,  I  gained  the  rim  and 
had  to  rest  before  I  could  mount.  When  I  did  get  into 
the  saddle  I  almost  fell  from  it. 

Jones  and  Emett  were  waiting  for  me  at  the  promon- 
tory where  I  had  tied  my  horse,  and  were  soon  acquainted 
with  the  particulars  of  my  adventure,  and  that  Jim 
would  probably  not  get  out  for  hours.  We  made  tracks 
for  camp,  and  never  did  a  place  rouse  in  me  such  a  sense 
of  gratefulness.  Emett  got  dinner  and  left  on  the  fire  a 
kettle  of  potato  stew  for  Jim.  It  was  almost  dark  when 
that  worthy  came  riding  into  camp.  We  never  said  a 
word  as  he  threw  the  two  lion  skins  on  the  ground. 

"Fellows,  you  shore  have  missed  the  wind-up!"  he 
exclaimed. 

We  all  looked  at  him  and  he  looked  at  us.    ""' 


ii6  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

"Was  there  any  more?"  I  asked  weakly. 

"Shore!  An'  it  beats  hell!  When  I  got 'the  skin  of 
the  lion  the  dogs  killed  I  started  to  work  up  to  the  place 
I  knowed  you'd  leave  my  horse.  It's  bad  climbing 
where  you  came  down.  I  got  on  the  side  of  that  cliff 
an'  saw  where  I  could  work  out,  if  I  could  climb  a  smooth 
place.  So  I  tried.  There  was  little  cracks  an'  ridges 
for  my  feet  and  hands.  All  to  once,  just  above  where 
I  helped  you  down,  I  heard  a  growl.  Looking  up  I  saw 
a  big  lion,  bigger'n  any  we  chased  except  Sultan,  an'  he 
was  pokin'  his  head  out  of  a  hole,  an'  shore  telling  me 
to  come  no  further.  I  couldn't  let  go  with  either  hand 
to  reach  my  gun,  because  I'd  have  fallen,  so  I  yelled  at 
him  with  all  my  might.  He  spit  at  me  an'  then  walked 
out  of  the  hole  over  the  bench  as  proud  as  a  lord  an' 
jumped  down  where  I  couldn't  see  him  any  more.  I 
climbed  out  all  right  but  he'd  gone.  An'  I'll  tell  you  for 
a  minute,  he  shore  made  me  sweat." 

"By  George!"  I  yelled,  greatly  excited.  "I  heard 
that  lion  breathing.  Don  chased  him  up  there.  I  heard 
hard,  wheezing  breaths  somewhere  behind  me,  but  in  the 
excitement  I  didn't  pay  any  attention  to  them.  I 
thought  it  was  Jones  panting,  but  now  I  know  what  it 
meant." 

"Shore.  He  was  there  all  the  time,  lookin'  at  you  an' 
maybe  he  could  have  reached  you." 

We  were  all  too  exhausted  for  more  discussion  and 
putting  that  off  until  the  next  day  we  sought  our  beds. 
It  was  hardly  any  wonder  that  I  felt  myself  jumping  even 
in  my  sleep,  and  started  up  wildly  more  than  once  in  the 
dead  of  night. 

Morning  found  us  all  rather  subdued,  yet  more  in- 
clined to  a  philosophical  resignation  as  regarded  the 
difficulties  of  our  special  kind  of  hunting.  Capturing 
the  lions  on  the  level  of  the  plateau  was  easy  compared 


JONES   AND   EMETT    PACKING   LION    ON    HORSE 


JONES   CLIMniNG    UP   TO   LASSO   LION 


ROPING  LIONS  IN  THE  GRAND  CANYON    117 

to  following  them  down  into  canyons  and  bringing  them 
up  alone.  We  all  agreed  that  that  was  next  to  impossi- 
ble. Another  feature,  which  before  we  had  not  consid- 
ered, added  to  our  perplexity  and  it  was  a  dawning  con- 
sciousness that  we  would  be  perhaps  less  cruel  if  we  killed 
the  lions  outright.  Jones  and  Emett  arrayed  themselves 
on  the  side  that  life  even  in  captivity  was  preferable; 
while  Jim  and  I,  no  doubt  still  under  the  poignant  in- 
fluence of  the  last  lion's  heroic  race  and  end,  inclined  to 
freedom  or  death.  We  compromised  on  the  reasonable 
fact  that  as  yet  we  had  shown  only  a  jackass  kind  of 
intelligence. 

About  eleven  o'clock  while  the  others  had  deserted 
camp  temporarily  for  some  reason  or  other,  I  was  loung- 
ing upon  an  odorous  bed  of  pine  needles.  The  sun  shone 
warmly,  the  sky  gleamed  bright  azure  through  the 
openings  of  the  great  trees,  a  dry  west  breeze  murmured 
through  the  forest.  I  was  lying  on  my  bed  musing  idly 
and  watching  a  yellow  woodpecker  when  suddenly  I  felt 
a  severe  bite  on  my  shoulder.  I  imagined  an  ant  had 
bitten  me  through  my  shirt.  In  a  moment  or  so  after- 
ward I  received,  this  time  on  my  breast,  another  bite 
that  left  no  room  for  imagination.  There  was  some  kind 
of  an  animal  inside  my  shirt,  and  one  that  made  a 
mosquito,  black-fly,  or  flea  seem  tame. 

Suddenly  a  thought  swept  on  the  heels  of  my  indolent 
and  rather  annoying  realization.  Could  I  have  gotten 
from  the  Navajo  what  Jim  and  Jones  so  characteristically 
called  ' '  'em  "  ?  I  turned  cold  all  over.  And  on  the  very 
instant  I  received  another  bite  that  burned  like  fire. 

The  return  of  my  companions  prevented  any  open 
demonstration  of  my  fears  and  condition  of  mind,  but 
I  certainly  swore  inwardly.  During  the  dinner  hour  I 
felt  all  the  time  as  if  I  had  on  a  horsehair  shirt  with  the 
ends  protruding  toward  my  skin,  and,  in  the  exaggerated 
9 


ii8  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

sensitiveness  of  the  moment,  made  sure  "'em"  were 
chasing  up  and  down  my  back. 

After  dinner  I  sneaked  off  into  the  woods.  I  remem- 
bered that  Emett  had  said  there  was  only  one  way  to  get 
rid  of  "  'em,"  and  that  was  to  disrobe  and  make  a 
microscopical  search  of  garments  and  person.  With 
serious  mind  and  murderous  intent  I  undressed.  In  the 
middle  of  the  back  of  my  jersey  I  discovered  several  long, 
uncanny,  gray  things. 

"I  guess  I  got  'em,"  I  said  gravely. 

Then  I  sat  on  a  pine  log  in  a  state  of  unadorned  nature, 
oblivious  to  all  around,  intent  only  on  the  massacre  of 
the  things  that  had  violated  me.  How  much  time  flew 
I  could  not  guess.  Great  loud  "Haw-haws!"  roused  me 
to  consternation.  There  behind  me  stood  Jones  and 
Emett  shaking  as  if  with  the  ague. 

"It's  not  funny!"  I  shouted  in  a  rage.  I  had  the  un- 
reasonable suspicion  that  they  had  followed  me  to  see 
my  humiliation.  Jones,  who  cracked  a  smile  about  as 
often  as  the  equinoxes  came,  and  Emett  the  sober 
Mormon,  laughed  until  they  cried. 

"I  was — just  wondering — what  your  folks  would — 
think — if  they — saw  you — now,"  gurgled  Jones. 

That  brought  to  me  the  humor  of  the  thing,  and  I 
joined  in  their  mirth. 

"All  I  hope  is  that  you  fellows  will  get  "em'  too," 
I  said. 

"The  Good  Lord  preserve  me  from  that  particular 
breed  of  Navvy's,"  cried  Emett. 

Jones  wriggled  all  over  at  the  mere  suggestion.  Now 
so  much  from  the  old  plainsman,  who  had  confessed  to 
intimate  relations  with  every  creeping,  crawling  thing  in 
the  West,  attested  powerfully  to  the  unforgettable  sin- 
gularity of  what  I  got  from  Navvy. 

I  returned  to  camp  determined  to  make  the  best  of  the 


ROPING  LIONS  IN  THE  GRAND  CANYON     119 

situation,  which  owing  to  my  failure  to  catch  all  of  the 
gray  devUs,  remained  practically  unchanged.  Jim  had 
been  acquainted  with  my  dilemma,  as  was  manifest  in 
his  wet  eyes  and  broad  grin  with  which  he  greeted  me. 

"I  think  I'd  scalp  the  Navvy,"  he  said. 

"You  make  the  Indian  sleep  outside  after  this,  snow 
or  no  snow,"  was  Jones'  suggestion. 

"No  I  won't;  I  won't  show  a  yellow  streak  like  that. 
Besides,  I  want  to  give  'em  to  you  fellows." 

A  blank  silence  followed  my  statement,  to  which  Jim 
replied : 

"Shore  that'll  be  easy;  Jones'll  have  'em,  so'll  Emett, 
an'  by  thunder  I'm  scratchin'  now." 

"Navvy,  look  here,"  I  said  severely,  "mucha  no 
bueno!  heap  bad!  You — me!"  here  I  scratched  myself 
and  made  signs  that  a  wooden  Indian  would  have  under- 
stood. 

"Me  savvy,"  he  replied,  sullenly,  then  flared  up. 
"Heap  big  lie." 

He  turned  on  his  heel,  erect,  dignified,  and  walked 
away  amid  the  roars  of  my  gleeful  comrades. 

IX 

One  by  one  my  companions  sought  their  blankets, 
leaving  the  shadows,  the  dying  embers,  the  slow-rising 
moan  of  the  night  wind  to  me.  Old  Moze  got  up  from 
among  the  other  hounds  and  limped  into  my  tent,  where 
I  heard  him  groan  as  he  lay  down.  Don,  Sounder,  and 
Ranger  were  fast  asleep  in  well-earned  rest.  Shep,  one 
of  the  pups,  whined  and  impatiently  tossed  his  short 
chain.  Remembering  that  he  had  not  been  loose  all 
day,  I  unbuckled  his  collar  and  let  him  go. 

He  licked  my  hand,  stretched  and  shook  himself,  lifted 
his  shapely,  sleek  head  and  sniffed  the  wind.     He  trotted 


I20  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

around  the  circle  cast  by  the  fire  and  looked  out  into  the 
darkening  shadows.  It  was  plain  that  Shep's  instincts 
were  developing  fast;  he  was  ambitious  to  hunt.  But 
sure  in  my  belief  that  he  was  afraid  of  the  black  night 
and  would  stay  in  camp,  I  went  to  bed. 

The  Navajo  who  slept  with  me  snored  serenely  and 
Moze  growled  in  his  dreams ;  the  wind  swept  through  the 
pines  with  an  intermittent  rush.  Some  time  in  the  after 
part  of  the  night  I  heard  a  distant  sound.  Remote, 
mournful,  wild,  it  sent  a  chill  creeping  over  me.  Borne 
faintly  to  my  ears,  it  was  a  fit  accompaniment  to  the 
moan  of  the  wind  in  the  pines.  It  was  not  the  cry  of  a 
trailing  wolf,  nor  the  lonesome  howl  of  a  prowling  coyote, 
nor  the  strange,  low  sound,  like  a  cough,  of  a  hunting 
cougar,  though  it  had  a  semblance  of  all  three.  It  was 
the  bay  of  a  hound,  thinned  out  by  distance,  and  it 
served  to  keep  me  wide  awake.  But  for  a  while,  what 
with  the  roar  and  swell  of  the  wind  and  Navvy's  snores, 
I  could  hear  it  only  at  long  intervals. 

Still,  in  the  course  of  an  hour,  I  followed  the  sound,  or 
imagined  so,  from  a  point  straight  in  line  with  my  feet 
to  one  at  right  angles  with  my  head.  Finally  deciding 
it  came  from  Shep,  and  fancying  he  was  trailing  a  deer 
or  coyote,  I  tried  to  go  to  sleep  again. 

In  this  I  would  have  succeeded  had  not,  all  at  once,  our 
captive  lions  begun  to  growl.  That  ominous,  low  mur- 
muring awoke  me  with  a  vengeance,  for  it  was  unusual 
for  them  to  growl  in  the  middle  of  the  night.  I  wondered 
if  they,  as  well  as  the  pup,  had  gotten  the  scent  of  a 
prowling  lion. 

I  reached  down  to  my  feet  and  groped  in  the  dark  for 
Moze.  Finding  him,  I  gave  him  a  shake.  The  old 
gladiator  groaned,  stirred,  and  came  out  of  what  must 
have  been  dreams  of  hunting  meat.  He  slapped  his  tail 
against  my  bed.     As  luck  would  have  it,  just  then  the 


ROPING  LIONS  IN  THE  GRAND  CANYON     121 

wind  abated  to  a  soft  moan,  and  clear  and  sharp  came  the 
bay  of  a  hound.  Moze  heard  it,  for  he  stopped  wagging 
his  tail,  his  body  grew  tense  under  my  hand,  and  he 
vented  his  low,  deep  grumble. 

I  lay  there  undecided.  To  wake  my  companions  was 
hardly  to  be  considered,  and  to  venture  off  into  the  forest 
alone,  where  old  Sultan  might  be  scouting,  was  not 
exactly  to  my  taste.  And  trying  to  think  what  to  do, 
and  listening  for  the  bay  of  the  pup,  and  hearing  mostly 
the  lions  growling  and  the  wind  roaring,  I  fell  asleep. 

' '  Hey !  are  you  ever  going  to  get  up  ? "  some  one  yelled 
into  my  drowsy  brain.  I  roused  and  opened  my  eyes. 
The  yellow,  flickering  shadows  on  the  wall  of  my  tent  told 
me  that  the  sun  had  long  risen.  I  found  my  companions 
finishing  breakfast.  The  first  thing  I  did  was  to  look 
over  the  dogs.  Shep,  the  black-and-white  pup,  was 
missing.  , 

"Where's  Shep?"   I  asked. 

"Shore,  I  ain't  seen  him  this  momin',"  replied  Jim. 

Thereupon  I  told  what  I  had  heard  during  the  night. 

"Everybody  listen,"  said  Jones. 

We  quieted  down  and  sat  like  statues.  A  gentle,  cool 
breeze,  barely  moving  the  pine  tips,  had  succeeded  the 
night  wind.  The  sound  of  horses  munching  their  oats, 
and  an  occasional  clink,  rattle,  and  growl  from  the  lions 
did  not  drown  the  faint  but  unmistakable  yelps  of  a  pup. 

"South,  toward  the  canyon,"  said  Jim,  as  Jones  got 
up. 

"Now,  it'd  be  funny  if  that  little  Shep,  just  to  get 
even  with  me  for  tying  him  up  so  often,  has  treed  a  lion 
all  by  himself,"  commented  Jones.  "And  I'll  bet  that's 
just  what  he's  done." 

He  called  the  hounds  about  him  and  hurried  westward 
through  the  forest. 

"Shore,  it  might  be."     Jim  shook  his  head  knowingly. 


122  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

"I  reckon  it's  only~a  rabbit,  but  any  thin'  might  happen 
in  this  place." 

I  finished  breakfast  and  went  into  my  tent  for  some- 
thing— I  forget  what,  for  wild  yells  from  Emett  and  Jim 
brought  me  flying  out  again. 

"Listen  to  that!"  cried  Jim,  pointing  west. 

The  hounds  had  opened  up;  their  full,  wild  "chorus 
floated  clearly  on  the  breeze,  and  above  it  Jones'  sten- 
torian yell  signaled  us. 

"Shore,  the  old  man  can  yell,"  continued  Jim.  "Grab 
your  lassos  an'  hump  yourselves.  I've  got  the  collar  an' 
chain." 

"Come  on,  Navvy,"  shouted  Emett.  He  grasped  the 
Indian's  wrist  and  started  to  run,  jerking  Navvy  into  the 
air  at  every  jump.  I  caught  up  my  camera  and  followed. 
We  crossed  two  shallow  hollows,  and  then  saw  the 
hounds  and  Jones  among  the  pines  not  far  ahead. 

In  my  excitement  I  outran  my  companions  and  dashed 
into  an  open  glade.  First  I  saw  Jones  waving  his  long 
arms;  next  the  dogs,  noses  upward,  and  Don  actually 
standing  on  his  hind  legs;  then  a  dead  pine  with  a  well- 
known  tawny  shape  outlined  against  the  blue  sky. 

"Hurrah  for  Shep!"  I  yelled,  and  right  vigorously  did 
my  comrades  join  in. 

"It's  another  female,"  said  Jones,  when  we  calmed 
down,  "and  fair  sized.  That's  the  best  tree  for  our  pur- 
pose that  I  ever  saw  a  lion  in.  So  spread  out,  boys; 
surround  her  and  keep  noisy." 

Navvy  broke  from  Emett  at  this  juncture  and  ran 
away.  But  evidently  overcome  by  curiosity,  he  stopped 
to  hide  behind  a  bush,  from  which  I  saw  his  black  head 
protruding. 

When  Jones  swung  himself  on  the  first  stubby  branch'' 
of  the  pine,  the  lioness,  some  fifteen  feet  above,  leaped  to 
another  limb,  and  the  one  she  had  left  cracked,  swayed,' 


ROPING  LIONS  IN  THE  GRAND  CANYON    123 

and  broke.  It  fell  directly  upon  Jones,  the  blunt  end 
striking  his  head  and  knocking  him  out  of  the  tree. 
Fortunately,  he  landed  on  his  feet;  otherwise  there  would 
surely  have  been  bones  broken.  He  appeared  stunned, 
and  reeled  so  that  Emett  caught  him.  The  blood  poured 
from  a  wound  in  his  head. 

This  sudden  shock  sobered  us  instantly.  On  examina- 
tion we  found  a  long,  jagged  cut  in  Jones'  scalp.  We 
bathed  it  with  water  from  my  canteen  and  with  snow 
Jim  procured  from  a  nearby  hollow,  eventually  stopping 
the  bleeding.  I  insisted  on  Jones  coming  to  camp  to  have 
the  wound  properly  dressed,  and  he  insisted  on  having  it 
bound  with  a  bandana ;  after  which  he  informed  us  that 
he  was  going  to  climb  the  tree  again. 

We  objected  to  this.  Each  of  us  declared  his  willing- 
ness to  go  up  and  rope  the  lion ;  but  Jones  would  not 
hear  of  it. 

"I'm  not  doubting  your  courage,"  he  said.  "It's  only 
that  you  cannot  tell  what  move  the  lion  would  make 
next,  and  that's  the  danger." 

We  could  not  gainsay  this,  and  as  not  one  of  us  wanted 
to  kill  the  animal  or  let  her  go,  Jones  had  his  way.  So 
he  went  up  the  tree,  passed  the  first  branch  and  then 
another.  The  lioness  changed  her  position,  growled, 
spat,  clawed  the  twigs,  tried  to  keep  the  tree  trunk 
between  her  and  Jones,  and  at  length  got  out  on  a  branch 
in  a  most  favorable  position  for  roping. 

The  first  cast  of  the  lasso  did  the  business,  and  Jim  and 
Emett  with  nimble  fingers  tied  up  the  hounds. 

"Coming,"  shouted  Jones.  He  slid  down,  hand  over 
hand,  on  the  rope,  the  lioness  holding  his  weight  with 
apparent  ease. 

"Make  your  noose  ready,"  he  yelled  to  Emett. 

I  had  to  drop  my  camera  to  help  Jones  and  Jim  pull 
the  animal  from  her  perch.     The  branches  broke  in  a 


124  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

shower;  then  the  honess,  hissing,  snarling,  whirUng, 
plunged  down.  She  nearly  jerked  the  rope  out  of  our 
hands,  but  we  lowered  her  to  Emett,  who  noosed  her 
hind  paws  in  a  flash. 

"Make  fast  your  rope,"  shouted  Jones.  "There, 
that's  good!     Now  let  her  down — easy." 

As  soon  as  the  lioness  touched  ground  we  let  go  the 
lasso,  which  whipped  up  and  over  the  branch.  She 
became  a  round,  yellow,  rapidly  moving  ball.  Emett  was 
the  first  to  catch  the  loose  lasso,  and  he  checked  the  roll- 
ing cougar.  Jones  leaped  to  assist  him  and  the  two  of 
them  straightened  out  the  struggling  animal,  while  Jim 
swung  another  noose  at  her.  On  the  second  throw  he 
caught  a  front  paw. 

"Pull  hard!  Stretch  her  out!"  yelled  Jones.  He 
grasped  a  stout  piece  of  wood  and  pushed  it  at  the  lioness. 
She  caught  it  in  her  mouth,  making  the  splinters  fly. 
Jones  shoved  her  head  back  on  the  ground  and  pressed 
his  brawny  knee  on  the  bar  of  wood. 

"The  collar!    The  collar!     Quick!"  he  called. 

I  threw  chain  and  collar  to  him,  which  in  a  moment  he 
had  buckled  round  her  neck, 

"There,  we've  got  her!"  he  said.  "It's  only  a 
short  way  over  to  camp,  so  we'll  drag  her  without 
muzzling." 

As  he  rose  the  lioness  lurched,  and  reaching  him, 
fastened  her  fangs  in  his  leg.  Jones  roared.  Emett  and 
Jim  yelled.  And  I,  though  frightened,  was  so  obsessed 
with  the  idea  of  getting  a  picture  that  I  began  to  fumble 
with  the  shutter  of  my  camera. 

"Grab  the  chain!     Pull  her  off!"  bawled  Jones. 

I  ran  in,  took  up  the  chain  with  both  hands,  and 
tugged  with  all  my  might.  Emett,  too,  had  all  his 
weight  on  the  lasso  round  her  neck.  Between  the  two 
of  us  we  choked  her  hold  loose,  but  she  brought  Jones' 


ROPING  LIONS  IN  THE  GRAND  CANYON    125 

leather  leggin  in  her  teeth.  Then  I  dropped  the  chain 
and  jumped. 

"** ** !"  exploded  Jones  to  me.     "Do 

you  think  more  of  a  picture  than  of  saving  my  life?" 
Having  expressed  this  not  unreasonable  protest,  he 
untied  the  lasso  that  Emett  had  made  fast  to  a  small 
sapling. 

Then  the  three  men,  forming  points  of  a  triangle 
around  an  animated  center,  began  a  march  through  the 
forest  that  for  variety  of  action  and  splendid  vociferation 
beat  any  show  I  ever  beheld. 

So  rare  was  it  that  the  Navajo  came  out  of  his 
retreat  and,  straightway  forgetting  his  reverence  and 
fear,  began  to  execute  a  ghost-dance,  or  war-dance,  or 
at  any  rate  some  kind  of  an  Indian  dance,  along  the 
side  lines. 

There  were  moments  when  the  lioness  had  Jim  and 
Jones  on  the  ground  and  Emett  wobbling ;  others  when 
she  ran  on  her  bound  legs  and  chased  the  two  in  front 
and  dragged  the  one  behind ;  others  when  she  came  within 
an  ace  of  getting  her  teeth  in  somebody. 

They  had  caught  a  Tartar.  They  dared  not  let  her 
go,  and  though  Jones  evidently  ordered  it,  no  one  made 
fast  his  rope  to  a  tree.  There  was  no  opportunity.  She 
was  in  the  air  three  parts  of  the  time  and  the  fourth  she 
was  invisible  for  dust.  The  lassos  were  each  thirty  feet 
long,  but  even  with  that  the  men  could  just  barely  keep 
out  of  her  reach. 

Then  came  the  climax,  as  it  always  comes  in  a  lion 
hunt,  unerringly,  unexpectedly,  and  with  lightning  swift- 
ness. The  three  men  were  nearing  the  bottom  of  the 
second  hollow,  well  spread  out,  lassos  taut,  facing  one 
another.  Jones  stumbled  and  the  lioness  leaped  his 
way.  The  weight  of  both  brought  Jim  over,  sliding 
and  slipping,  with  his  rope  slackening.     The  leap  of  the 


126  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

lioness  carried  her  within  reach  of  Jones;  and  as  he 
raised  himself,  back  toward  her,  she  reached  a  big  paw 
for  him  just  as  Emett  threw  all  his  bull  strength  and 
bulk  on  his  lasso. 

The  seat  of  Jones'  trousers  came  away  with  the  lioness' 
claws.  Then  she  fell  backward,  overcome  by  Emett's 
desperate  lunge.  Jones  sprang  up  with  the  velocity  of 
an  Arab  tumbler,  and  his  scarlet  face,  working  spas- 
modically, and  his  moving  lips,  showed  how  utterly 
unable  he  was  to  give  expression  to  his  rage.  I  had  a 
stitch  in  my  side  that  nearly  killed  me,  but  laugh  I  had 
to  though  I  should  die  for  it. 

No  laughing  matter  was  it  for  them.  They  volleyed 
and  thundered  back  and  forth  meaningless  words  of 
which  "hell"  was  the  only  one  distinguishable,  and 
probably  the  word  that  best  described  their  situation. 

All  the  while,  however,  they  had  been  running  from 
the  lioness,  which  brought  them  before  they  realized  it 
right  into  camp.  Our  captive  lions  cut  up  fearfully  at 
the  hubbub,  and  the  horses  stampeded  in  terror. 

"Whoa!"  yelled  Jones,  whether  to  his  companions  or 
to  the  struggling  cougar,  no  one  knew.  But  Navvy 
thought  Jones  addressed  the  cougar. 

"Whoa!"  repeated  Navvy.  "No  savvy  whoa!  No 
savvy  whoa!"  which  proved  conclusively  that  the 
Navajo  had  understanding  as  well  as  wit. 

Soon  we  had  another  captive  safely  chained  and 
growling  away  in  tune  with  the  others.  I  went  back  to 
untie  the  hounds,  to  find  them  sulky  and  out  of  sorts 
from  being  so  unceremoniously  treated.  They  noisily 
trailed  the  lioness  into  camp,  where,  finding  her  chained, 
they  formed  a  ring  around  her. 

Thereafter  the  day  passed  in  round-the-camp-fire  chat 
and  task.  For  once  Jim  looked  at  Navvy  with  tolera- 
tion.    We  dressed  the  wound  in  Jones'  head  and  laughed 


ROPING  LIONS  IN  THE  GRAND  CANYON     127 

at  the  condition  of  his  trousers  and  at  his  awkward 
attempts  to  piece  them. 

"Mucha  dam  cougie,"  remarked  Navvy.  "No  savvy 
whoa!" 

The  Hons  growled  all  day.  And  Jones  kept  repeating : 
"To  think  how  Shep  fooled  me!" 

X 

Next  morning  Jones  was  out  bright  and  early,  yelling 
at  Navvy  to  hurry  with  the  horses,  calling  to  the  hounds 
and  lions,  just  as  usual. 

Navvy  had  finally  come  to  his  full  share  of  praise  from 
all  of  us.  Even  Jim  acknowledged  that  the  Indian  was 
invaluable  to  a  hunting  party  in  a  country  where  grass 
and  water  were  hard  to  find  and  wild  horses  haunted  the 
trails. 

"Tohodena!  Tohodena!  (hurry!  hurry!)"  said  Navvy, 
mimicking  Jones  that  morning. 

As  we  sat  down  to  breakfast  he  loped  off  into  the  forest 
and  before  we  got  up  the  bells  of  the  horses  were  jingling 
in  the  hollow. 

"I  believe  it's  going  to  be  cloudy,"  said  Jones,  "and  if 
so  we  can  hunt  all  day." 

We  rode  down  the  ridge  to  the  left  of  Middle  Canyon, 
and  had  trouble  with  the  hounds  all  the  way.  First  they 
ran  foul  of  a  coyote,  which  was  the  one  and  only  beast 
they  could  not  resist.  Spreading  out  to  head  them  off, 
we  separated.  I  cut  into  a  hollow  and  rode  to  its  head, 
where  I  went  up.  I  heard  the  hounds  and  presently  saw 
a  big,  white  coyote  making  fast  time  through  the  forest 
glades.  It  looked  as  if  he  would  cross  close  in  front  of 
me,  so  I  pulled  Foxie  to  a  standstill,  jumped  off  and 
knelt  with  my  rifle  ready.  But  the  sharp-eyed  coyote 
saw  my  horse  and  shied  off.     I  had  not  much  hope  to  hit 


128  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

him  so  far  away,  and  the  five  bullets  I  sent  after  him, 
singing  and  zipping,  served  only  to  make  him  run  faster. 
I  mounted  Foxie  and  intercepted  the  hounds  coming  up 
sharply  on  the  trail,  and  turned  them  toward  my  com- 
panions, now  hallooing  from  the  ridge  below. 

Then  the  pack  lost  a  good  hour  on  several  lion  tracks 
that  were  a  day  old,  and  for  such  trails  we  had  no  time. 
We  reached  the  cedars  however  at  seven  o'clock,  and  as 
the  sky  was  overcast  with  low  dun-colored  clouds  and  the 
air  cool,  we  were  sure  it  was  not  too  late. 

One  of  the  capes  of  the  plateau  between  Middle  and 
Left  Canyon  was  a  narrow  strip  of  rock,  covered  with  a 
dense  cedar  growth  and  cut  up  into  smaller  canyons,  all 
running  down  inevitably  toward  the  great  canyon. 
With  but  a  single  bark  to  warn  us,  Don  got  out  of  our 
sight  and  hearing ;  and  while  we  split  to  look  and  call  for 
him  the  remainder  of  the  pack  found  the  lion  trail  that 
he  had  gone  on,  and  they  left  us  trying  to  find  a  way  out 
as  well  as  to  find  each  other.  I  kept  the  hounds  in  hear- 
ing for  some  time  and  meanwhile  I  signalled  to  Emett  who 
was  on  my  right  flank.  Jones  and  Jim  might  as  well 
have  vanished  off  the  globe  for  all  I  could  see  or  hear  of 
them.  A  deep,  narrow  gully  into  which  I  had  to  lead 
Foxie  and  carefully  coax  him  out  took  so  much  time  that 
when  I  once  more  reached  a  level  I  could  not  hear  the 
hounds  or  get  an  answer  to  my  signal  cry. 

"Waa-hoo!"  I  called  again. 

Away  on  the  dry  rarified  air  pealed  the  cry,  piercing 
the  cedar  forest,  splitting  sharp  in  the  vaulted  canyons, 
rolling  loud  and  long,  to  lose  power,  to  die  away  in 
muffling  echo.     But  the  silence  returned  no  answer. 

I  rode  on  under  the  cedars,  through  a  dark,  gloomy 
forest,  silent,  almost  spectral,  which  brought  irresistibly 
to  my  mind  the  words  "I  found  me  in  a  gloomy  wood 
astray."     I  was  lost  though  I  knew  the  direction  of  the 


ROPING  LIONS  IN  THE  GRAND  CANYON    129 

camp.  This  section  of  cedar  forest  was  all  but  impen- 
etrable. Dead  cedars  were  massed  in  gray  tangles,  live 
cedars,  branches  touching  the  ground,  grew  close  to- 
gether. In  this  labyrinth  I  lost  my  bearings.  I  turned 
and  turned,  crossed  my  own  back  trail,  which  in  desper- 
ation I  followed,  coming  out  of  the  cedars  at  the  deep 
and  narrow  canyon. 

Here  I  fired  my  revolver.  The  echo  boomed  out  like 
the  report  of  heavy  artillery,  but  no  answering  shot  re- 
warded me.  There  was  no  alternative  save  to  wander 
along  the  canyon  and  through  the  cedars  until  I  found 
my  companions.  This  I  began  to  do,  disgusted  with  my 
awkwardness  in  losing  them.  Turning  Foxie  westward 
I  had  scarcely  gotten  under  way  when  Don  came  trotting 
toward  me. 

"Hello,  old  boy!"  I  called.  Don  appeared  as  happy 
to  see  me  as  I  was  to  see  him.  He  flopped  down  on  the 
ground ;  his  dripping  tongue  rolled  as  he  panted ;  covered 
with  dust  and  flecked  with  light  froth  he  surely  looked  to 
be  a  tired  hound. 

"All  in,  eh  Don!"  I  said  dismounting.  "Well,  we'll 
rest  awhile."  Then  I  discovered  blood  on  his  nose,  which 
I  found  to  have  come  from  a  deep  scratch.  "A — ah! 
been  pushing  a  lion  too  hard  this  morning  ?  Got  your 
nose  scratched,  didn't  you?  You  great,  crazy  hound, 
don't  you  know  some  day  you'll  chase  your  last  lion?" 

Don  wagged  his  tail  as  if  to  say  he  knew  it  all  very- 
well.  I  wet  my  handkerchief  from  my  canteen  and 
started  to  wash  the  blood  and  dust  from  his  nose,  when 
he  whined  and  licked  my  fingers. 

"Thirsty?"  I  asked,  sitting  down  beside  him.  Dent- 
ing the  top  of  my  hat  I  poured  in  as  much  water  as  it 
would  hold  and  gave  him  to  drink.  Four  times  he  emp- 
tied my  improvised  cup  before  he  was  satisfied.  Then 
with  a  sigh  of  relief  he  lay  down  again. 


I30  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

The  three  of  us  rested  there  for  perhaps  half  an  hour, 
Don  and  I  sitting  quietly  on  the  wall  of  the  canyon,  while 
Foxie  browsed  on  occasional  tufts  of  grass.  During  that 
time  the  hound  never  raised  his  sleek,  dark  head,  which 
showed  conclusively  the  nature  of  the  silence.  And  now 
that  I  had  company — as  good  company  as  any  hunter 
ever  had— I  was  once  more  contented. 

Don  got  up,  at  length  of  his  own  volition  and  with  a 
wag  of  his  tail  set  off  westward  along  the  rim.  Remount- 
ing my  mustang  I  kept  as  close  to  Don's  heels  as  the 
rough  going  permitted.  The  hound,  however,  showed  no 
disposition  to  hurry,  and  I  let  him  have  his  way  without 
a  word. 

We  came  out  in  the  notch  of  the  great  amphitheater  or 
curve  we  had  named  the  Bay,  and  I  saw  again  the  down- 
ward slope,  the  bold  steps,  the  color  and  depth  below. 

I  was  just  about  to  yell  a  signal  cry  when  I  saw  Don, 
with  hair  rising  stiff,  run  forward.  He  took  a  dozen 
jumps,  then  yelping  broke  down  the  steep,  yellow  and 
green  gorge.  He  disappeared  before  I  knew  what  had 
happened. 

Shortly  I  found  a  lion  track,  freshly  made,  leading 
down.  I  believed  I  could  follow  wherever  Don  led,  so 
I  decided  to  go  after  him.  I  tied  Foxie  securely,  removed 
my  coat,  kicked  off  spurs  and  chaps,  and  rememxbering 
past  unnecessary  toil,  fastened  a  red  bandana  to  the  top 
of  a  dead  snag  to  show  me  where  to  come  up  on  my  way 
out.  Then  I  carefully  strapped  my  canteen  and  camera 
on  my  back,  made  doubly  secure  my  revolver,  put  on  my 
heavy  gloves,  and  started  down.  And  I  realized  at  once 
that  only  so  lightly  encumbered  should  I  have  ever 
ventured  down  the  slope. 

Little  benches  of  rock,  grassy  on  top,  with  here  and 
there  cedar  trees,  led  steeply  down  for  perhaps  five 
hundred  feet.     A  precipice  stopped  me.     From  it  I  heard 


ROPING  LIONS  IN  THE  GRAND  CANYON    131 

Don  baying  below,  and  almost  instantly  saw  the  yellow 
gleam  of  a  lion  in  a  tree- top. 

"Hi!  Hi!  Hi!  Hi!  Hi!"  I  yelled  in  wild  encourage- 
ment. 

I  felt  it  would  be  wise  to  look  before  I  leaped.  The 
Bay  lay  under  me,  a  mile  wide  where  it  opened  into  the 
great  slumbering  smoky  canyon.  All  below  was  chaos  of 
splintered  stone  and  slope,  green  jumble  of  cedar,  ruined, 
detached,  sliding,  standing  cliff  walls,  leaning  yellow 
crags — an  awrful  hole.  But  I  could  get  down,  and  that 
was  all  I  cared  for.  I  ran  along  to  the  left,  jumping 
cracks,  bounding  over  the  uneven  stones  with  sure,  swift 
feet,  and  came  to  where  the  cliff  ended  in  weathered 
slope  and  scaly  bench. 

It  was  like  a  game,  going  down  that  canyon.  My 
heavy  nailed  boots  struck  fire  from  the  rocks.  My 
heavy  gloves  protected  my  hands  as  I  slid  and  hung  on 
and  let  go.  I  outfooted  the  avalanches  and  wherever  I 
came  to  a  scaly  slope  or  bank  or  decayed  rock,  I  leaped 
down  in  sheer  delight. 

But  all  too  soon  my  progress  was  barred;  once  under 
the  cliff  I  found  only  a  gradual  slope  and  many  obstacles 
to  go  round  or  surmount.  Luck  favored  me,  for  I  ran 
across  a  runway  and  keeping  to  it  made  better  time. 
I  heard  Don  long  before  I  tried  to  see  him,  and  yelled 
at  intervals  to  let  him  know  I  was  coming.  A  white 
bank  of  weathered  stones  led  down  to  a  clump  of  cedars 
from  where  Don's  bay  came  spurring  me  to  greater 
efforts.  I  flew  down  this  bank,  and  through  an  opening 
saw  the  hound  standing  with  fore  feet  against  a  cedar. 
The  branches  over  him  swayed,  and  I  saw  an  indistinct, 
tawny  form  move  downward  in  the  air.  Then  succeeded 
the  crash  and  rattle  of  stones.  Don  left  the  tree  and 
disappeared. 

I  dashed  down,  dodged  under  the  cedars,  threaded  a 


132  JALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

maze  of  rocks,  to  find  myself  in  a  ravine  with  a  bare, 
water-worn  floor.  In  patches  of  sand  showed  the  fresh 
tracks  of  Don  and  the  Hon.  Running  down  this  dry, 
clean  bed  was  the  easiest  going  I  ever  found  in  the 
canyon.  Every  rod  the  course  jumped  in  a  fall  from 
four  to  ten  feet,  often  more,  and  these  I  slid  down.  How 
I  ever  kept  Don  in  hearing  was  a  marvel,  but  still  I  did. 
'  The  lion  evidently  had  no  further  intention  of  taking 
to  a  tree.  From  the  size  of  his  track  I  concluded  he  was 
old  and  I  feared  every  moment  to  hear  the  sounds  of  a 
fight.  Jones  had  said  that  nearly  always  in  the  case  of 
one  hound  chasing  an  old  lion,  the  lion  would  lie  in  wait 
for  him  and  kill  him.     And  I  was  afraid  for  Don.       _^ 

Down,  down,  down,  we  went,  till  the  yellow  rim  above 
seemed  a  thin  band  of  gold.  I  saw  that  we  were  almost 
to  the  canyon  proper,  and  I  wondered  what  would  hap- 
pen when  we  reached  it.  The  dark  shaded  watercourse 
suddenly  shot  out  into  bright  light  and  ended  in  a  deep 
cove,  with  perpendicular  walls  fifty  feet  high.  I  could 
see  where  a  few  rods  farther  on  this  cove  opened  into  a 
huge,  airy,  colored  canyon. 

I  called  the  hound,  wondering  if  he  had  gone  to  the 
right  or  left  of  the  cove.  His  bay  answered  me  coming 
from  the  cedars  far  to  the  right.  I  turned  with  all  the 
speed  left  in  me,  for  I  felt  the  chase  nearing  an  end. 
Tracks  of  hound  and  lion  once  more  showed  in  the  dust. 
The  slope  was  steep  and  stones  I  sent  rolling  cracked 
down  below.  Soon  I  had  a  cliff  above  me  and  had  to  go 
slow  and  cautiously.  A  misstep  or  slide  would  have 
precipitated  me  into  the  cove. 

Almost  before  I  knew  what  I  was  about,  I  stood 
gasping  on  the  gigantic  second  wall  of  the  canyon,  with 
nothing  but  thin  air  under  me,  except,  far  below,  faint 
and  indistinct  purple  clefts,  red  ridges,  dotted  slopes, 
running  down  to  merge  in  a  dark,  winding  strip  of  water, 


1^'  .1»*'.»  *»■** 


TWO    LIONS    IN    ONE    TREE 


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ROPING  LIONS  IN  THE  GRAND  CANYON     133 

that  was  the  Rio  Colorado.     A  sullen  murmur  soared  out 
of  the  abyss. 

The  coloring  of  my  mood  changed.  Never  had  the 
canyon  struck  me  so  terribly  with  its  illimitable  space, 
its  dread  depth,  its  unscalable  cliffs,  and  particularly 
with  the  desolate,  forbidding  quality  of  its  silence. 

I  heard  Don  bark.  Turning  the  corner  of  the  cliff 
wall  I  saw  him  on  a  narrow  shelf.  He  was  coming 
toward  me  and  when  he  reached  me  he  faced  again  to  the 
wall  and  barked  fiercely.  The  hair  on  his  neck  bristled. 
I  knew  he  did  not  fancy  that  narrow  strip  of  rock,  nor 
did  I.  But  a  sudden,  grim,  cold  something  had  taken 
possession  of  me,  and  I  stepped  forward. 

"Come  on,  Don,  old  fellow,  we've  got  him  corralled." 

That  was  the  first  instance  I  ever  knew  of  Don's 
hesitation  in  the  chase  of  a  lion.  I  had  to  coax  him  to 
me.  But  once  started  he  took  the  lead  and  I  closely 
followed. 

The  shelf  was  twenty  feet  wide  and  upon  it  close  to  the 
wall,  in  the  dust,  were  the  deep  imprints  of  the  lion.  A 
jutting  corner  of  cliff  wall  hid  my  view.  I  peeped  around 
it.  The  shelf  narrowed  on  the  other  side  to  a  yard  in 
width,  and  climbed  gradually  by  broken  steps.  Don 
passed  the  corner,  looked  back  to  see  if  I  was  coming  and 
went  on.  He  did  this  four  times,  once  even  stopping  to 
wait  for  me. 

"I'm  with  you  Don ! "  I  grimly  muttered.  *  *  We'll  see 
this  trail  out  to  a  finish." 

I  had  now  no  eyes  for  the  wonders  of  the  place,  though 
I  could  not  but  see  as  I  bent  a  piercing  gaze  ahead  the 
ponderous  overhanging  wall  above,  and  sense  the  bot- 
tomless depth  below.  I  felt  rather  than  saw  the  canyon 
swallows,  sweeping  by  in  darting  flight,  with  soft  rustle 
of  wings,  and  I  heard  the  shrill  chirp  of  some  strange 

cliff  inhabitant. 
10 


134  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

Don  ceased  barking.  How  strange  that  seemed  to  me ! 
•We  were  no  longer  man  and  hound,  but  companions, 
brothers,  each  one  relying  on  the  other.  A  protruding 
corner  shut  us  from  sight  of  what  was  beyond.  Don 
slipped  around.  I  had  to  go  sidewise  and  shuddered  as 
my  fingers  bit  into  the  wall. 

To  my  surprise  I  soon  found  myself  on  the  floor  of  a 
shallow  wind  cave.  The  lion  trail  led  straight  across 
it  and  on.  Shelves  of  rock  stuck  out  above  under  which 
I  hurriedly  walked.  I  came  upon  a  shrub  cedar  growing 
in  a  niche  and  marveled  to  see  it  there.  Don  went 
slower  and  slower. 

We  suddenly  rounded  a  point,  to  see  the  lion  lying  in 
a  box-like  space  in  the  wall.  The  shelf  ended  there.  I 
had  once  before  been  confronted  with  a  like  situation, 
and  had  expected  to  find  it  here,  so  was  not  frightened. 
The  lion  looked  up  from  his  task  of  licking  a  bloody  paw, 
and  uttered  a  fierce  growl.  His  tail  began  to  lash  to  and 
fro;  it  knocked  the  little  stones  off  the  shelf.  I  heard 
them  click  on  the  wall.  Again  and  again  he  spat,  show- 
ing great,  white  fangs.     He  was  a  Tom,  heavy  and  large. 

It  had  been  my  purpose,  of  course,  to  photograph  this 
lion,  and  now  that  we  had  cornered  him  I  proposed  to  do 
it.  What  would  follow  had  only  hazily  formed  in  my 
mind,  but  the  nucleus  of  it  was  that  he  should  go  free. 
I  got  my  camera,  opened  it,  and  focused  from  between 
twenty  and  twenty-five  feet. 

Then  a  growl  from  Don  and  roar  from  the  lion  bade 
me  come  to  my  senses.  I  did  so  and  my  first  movement 
after  seeing  the  lion  had  risen  threateningly  was  to  whip 
out  my  revolver. 

The  lion's  cruel  yellow  eyes  darkened  and  darkened. 

In  an  instant  I  saw  my  error.     Jones  had  always  said 

in  case  any  one  of  us  had  to  face  a  lion,  never  for  a  single 

^instant  to  shift  his  glance.     I  had  forgotten  that,  and  in 


ROPING  LIONS  IN  THE  GRAND  CANYON     135 

that  short  interval  when  I  focused  my  camera  the  lion 
had  seen  I  meant  him  no  harm,  or  feared  him,  and  he  had 
risen.  Even  then  in  desperate  lessening  ambition  for  a 
great  picture  I  attempted  to  take  one,  still  keeping  my 
glance  on  him. 

It  was  then  that  the  appalling  nature  of  my  predica- 
ment made  itself  plain  to  me.  The  lion  leaped  ten  feet" 
and  stood  snarling  horribly  right  in  my  face. 

Brave,  noble  Don,  with  infinitely  more  sense  and 
courage  than  I  possessed,  faced  the  lion  and  bayed  him 
in  his  teeth.  I  raised  the  revolver  and  aimed  tw4ce, 
each  time  lowering  it  because  I  feared  to  shoot  in  such  a 
precarious  position.  To  wound  the  lion  would  be  the 
worst  thing  I  could  do,  and  I  knew  that  only  a  shot 
through  the  brain  would  kill  him  in  his  tracks. 

"Hold  him,  Don,  hold  him!"  I  yelled,  and  I  took  a 
backward  step.  The  lion  put  forward  one  big  paw,  his 
eyes  now  all  purple  blaze.  I  backed  again  and  he  came 
forward.  Don  gave  ground  slowly.  Once  the  lion 
flashed  a  yellow  paw  at  him.  It  was  frightful  to  see 
the  wide-spread  claws. 

In  the  consternation  of  the  moment  I  allowed  the  lion 
to  back  me  across  the  front  of  the  wind  cave,  where  I 
saw,  the  moment  it  was  too  late,  I  should  have  taken 
advantage  of  more  space  to  shoot  him. 

Fright  succeeded  consternation,  and  I  began  to  trem- 
ble. The  lion  was  master  of  the  situation.  What 
would  happen  when  I  came  to  the  narrow  point  on  the 
shelf  where  it  would  be  impossible  for  me  to  back  around  ? 
I  almost  fainted.  The  thought  of  heroic  Don  saved  me, 
and  the  weak  moment  passed. 

"By  God,  Don,  you've  got  the  nerve,  and  I  must  have 
it  too!" 

I  stopped  in  my  tracks.  The  lion,  appearing  huge 
now,  took  slow  catlike  steps  toward  me,  backing  Don 


1^,6  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 


'J 


almost  against  my  knees.  He  was  so  close  I  smelt  him. 
His  wonderful  eyes,  clear  blue  fire  circled  by  yellow 
flame,  fascinated  me.  Hugging  the  wall  with  my  body 
I  brought  the  revolver  up,  short  armed,  and  with  clinched 
teeth,  and  nerve  strained  to  the  breaking  point,  I  aimed 
between  the  eyes  and  pulled  the  trigger. 

The  left  eye  seemed  to  go  out  blankly,  then  followed 
the  bellow  of  the  revolver  and  the  smell  of  powder.     The 
lion  uttered  a  sound  that  was  a  mingling  of  snarls,  howls 
and  roars  and  he  rose  straight  up,  towering  high  over^ 
my  head,  beating  the  wall  heavily  with  his  paws. 

In  helpless  terror  I  stood  there  forgetting  weapon,^ 
fearing  only  the  beast  would  fall  over  on  me. 

But  in  death  agony  he  bounded  out  from  the  wall  to 
fall  into  space. 

I  sank  down  on  the  shelf,  legs  powerless,  body  in  cold 
sweat.  As  I  waited,  slowly  my  mind  freed  itself  from  a 
tight  iron  band  and  a  sickening  relief  filled  my  soul. 
Tensely  I  waited  and  listened.     Don  whined  once. 

Would  the  lion  never  strike?  What  seemed  a  long 
period  of  time  ended  in  a  low,  distant  roar  of  sliding 
rock,  quickly  dying  into  the  solemn  stillness  of  the 
canyon. 

XI 

I  lay  there  for  some  moments  slowly  recovering,  eyes 
on  the  far  distant  escarpments,  now  darkly  red  and 
repellent  to  me.  When  I  got  up  my  legs  were  still  shaky 
and  I  had  the  strange,  weak  sensation  of  a  long  bed- 
ridden invalid.  Three  attempts  were  necessary  before 
I  could  trust  myself  on  the  narrow  strip  of  shelf.  But 
once  around  it  with  the  peril  passed,  I  braced  up  and  soon 
reached  the  turn  in  the  wall. 

After  that  the  ascent  out  of  the  Bay  was  only  a  matter 
of  work,  which  I  gave  with  a  will.     Don  did  not  evince 


ROPING  LIONS  IN  THE  GRAND  CANYON    137 

any  desire  for  more  hunting  that  day.  We  reached  the 
rim  together,  and  after  a  short  rest,  I  mounted  my  horse, 
and  we  turned  for  camp. 

The  sun  had  long  slanted  toward  the  western  horizon 
when  I  saw  the  blue  smoke  of  our  camp-fire  among  the 
pines.  The  hounds  rose  up  and  barked  as  Don  trotted 
in  to  the  blaze,  and  my  companions  just  sitting  to  a 
dinner,  gave  me  a  noisy  greeting. 

"Shore,  we'd  began  to  get  worried,"  said  Jim.  "We 
all  had  it  comin'  to  us  to-day,  and  don't  you  forget  that." 

Dinner  lasted  for  a  long  hour.  Besides  being  half 
famished  we  all  took  time  between  bites  to  talk.  I  told 
my  story  first,  expecting  my  friends  to  be  overwhelmed, 
but  they  were  not. 

"It's  been  the  greatest  day  of  lion  hunting  that  I  ever 
experienced,"  declared  Jones.  "We  ran  bang  into  a 
nest  of  lions  and  they  split.  We  all  split  and  the  hounds 
split.  That  tells  the  tale.  We  have  nothing  to  show 
for  our  day's  toil.  Six  lions  chased,  rounded  up,  treed, 
holed,  and  one  lion  killed,  and  we  haven't  even  his  skin 
to  show.  I  did  not  go  down  but  I  helped  Ranger  and 
two  of  the  pups  chase  a  lion  all  over  the  lower  end  of  the 
plateau.  We  treed  him  twice  and  I  yelled  for  you  fellows 
till  my  voice  was  gone." 

"Well,"  said  Emett,  "I  fell  in  with  Sounder  and  Jude. 
They  were  hot  on  a  trail  which  in  a  mile  or  two  turned 
up  this  way.  I  came  on  them  just  at  the  edge  of  the 
pines  where  they  had  treed  their  game.  I  sat  under 
that  pine  tree  for  five  hours,  fired  all  my  shots  to  make 
you  fellows  come,  yelled  myself  hoarse  and  then  tried  to 
tie  up  the  lion  alone.  He  jumped  out  and  ran  over  the 
rim,  where  neither  I  nor  the  dogs  could  follow." 

"Shore,  I  win,  three  of  a  kind,"  drawled  Jim,  as  he  got 
his  pipe  and  carefully  dusted  the  bowl.  "When  the 
stampede  came,  I  got  my  hands  on  Moze  and  held  him. 


138  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

I  held  Moze  because  just  as  the  other  hounds  broke 
lose  over  to  my  right,  I  saw  down  into  a  Httle  pocket 
where  a  fresh-killed  deer  lay  half  eaten.  So  I  went  down. 
I  found  two  other  carcasses  layin'  there,  fresh  killed  last 
night,  flesh  all  gone,  hide  gone,  bones  crushed,  skull  split 
open.  An'  damn  me  fellows,  if  that  little  pocket  wasn't 
all  torn  to  pieces.  The  sage  was  crushed  flat.  The 
ground  dug  up,  dead  snags  broken,  and  blood  and  hair 
everjHA'here.  Lion  tracks  like  leaves,  and  old  Sultan's 
was  there.  I  let  Moze  loose  and  he  humped  the  trail  of 
several  lions  south  over  the  rim.  Major  got  down  first 
an'  came  back  with  his  tail  between  his  legs.  Moze  went 
down  and  I  kept  close  to  him.  It  wasn't  far  down,  but 
steep  and  rocky,  full  of  holes.  Moze  took  the  trail  to  a 
dark  cave.  I  saw  the  tracks  of  three  lions  goin'  in. 
Then  I  collared  Moze  an'  waited  for  you  fellows.  I 
waited  there  all  day,  an'  nobody  came  to  my  call.  Then 
I  made  for  camp." 

"How  do  you  account  for  the  tom-up  appear- 
ance of  the  place  where  you  found  the  carcasses?"  I 
asked. 

"Lion  fight  sure,"  replied  Jones.  "Maybe  old  Sultan 
ran  across  the  three  lions  feeding,  and  pitched  into  them. 
Such  fights  were  common  among  the  lions  in  Yellowstone 
Park  when  I  was  there." 

"What  chance  have  we  to  find  those  three  lions  in  a 
cave  where  Jim  chased  them?" 

"We  stand  a  good  chance,"  said  Jones.  "Especially 
if  it  storms  to-night." 

"Shore  the  snow  storm  is  comin',"  returned  Jim. 

Darkness  clapped  down  on  us  suddenly,  and  the  wind 
roared  in  the  pines  like  a  mighty  river  tearing  its  way 
down  a  rocky  pass.  As  we  could  not  control  the  camp- 
fire,  sparks  of  which  blew  fiercely,  we  extinguished  it  and 
went  to  bed.     I  had  just  settled  myself  comfortably  to 


ROPING  LIONS  IN  THE  GRAND  CANYON    139 

be  sung  to  sleep  by  the  concert  in  the  pines,  when  Jones 
hailed  me. 

"Say,  what  do  you  think?"  he  yelled,  when  I  had  an- 
swered him.  "Emett  is  mad.  He's  scratching  to  beat 
the  band.     He's  got  'em." 

I  signalled  his  information  with  a  loud  whoop  of 
victory.  * 

"You  next,  Jones!  They're  coming  to  you!" 

I  heard  him  grumble  over  my  happy  anticipation. 
Jim  laughed  and  so  did  the  Navajo,  which  made  me 
suspect  that  he  could  understand  more  English  than  he 
wanted  us  to  suppose. 

Next  morning  a  meny  yell  disturbed  my  slumbers. 
"Snowed  in — snowed  in!" 

"Mucha  snow — discass — no  cougie — dam  no  bueno!" 
exclaimed  Navvy. 

When  I  peeped  out  to  see  the  forest  in  the  throes  of  a 
blinding  blizzard,  the  great  pines  only  pale,  grotesque 
shadows,  everything  white  mantled  in  a  foot  of  snow,  I 
emphasized  the  Indian  words  in  straight  English. 

"Much  snow — cold — no  cougar — bad!" 

"Stay  in  bed,"  yelled  Jones. 

"All  right,"  I  replied.  "Say  Jones,  have  you  got  'em 
yet?" 

He  vouchsafed  me  no  answer,  I  went  to  sleep  then 
and  dozed  off  and  on  till  noon,  when  the  storm  abated. 
We  had  dinner,  or  rather  breakfast,  round  a  blazing 
bonfire. 

"It's  going  to  clear  up,"  said  Jim. 

The  forest  around  us  was  a  somber  and  gloomy  place. 
The  cloud  that  had  enveloped  the  plateau  lifted  and 
began  to  move.  It  hit  the  tree  tops,  sometimes  rolling 
almost  to  the  ground,  then  rising  above  the  trees.  At 
first  it  moved  slowly,  rolling,  forming,  expanding,  bloom- 
ing like  a  column  of  whirling  gray  smoke ;  then  it  gathered 


140  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

headway  and  rolled  onward  through  the  forest.  A  gray, 
gloomy  curtain,  moving  and  rippling,  split  by  the  trees, 
seemed  to  be  passing  over  us.  It  rose  higher  and  higher, 
to  split  up  in  great  globes,  to  roll  apart,  showing  glimpses 
of  blue  sky. 

Shafts  of  golden  sunshine  shot  down  from  these  rifts, 
dispelling  the  shadows  and  gloom,  moving  in  paths  of 
gold  through  the  forest  glade,  gleaming  with  brilliantly 
colored  fire  from  the  snow-wreathed  pines. 

The  cloud  rolled  away  and  the  sun  shone  hot.  The 
trees  began  to  drip.  A  mist  of  diamonds  filled  the  air, 
rainbows  curved  through  every  glade  and  feathered 
patches  of  snow  floated  down. 

A  great  bank  of  snow,  sliding  from  the  pine  overhead 
almost  buried  the  Navajo,  to  our  infinite  delight.  We 
all  sought  the  shelter  of  the  tents,  and  sleep  again  claimed 
us. 

I  awoke  about  five  o'clock.  The  sun  was  low,  making 
crimson  paths  in  the  white  aisles  of  the  forest.  A  cold 
wind  promised  a  frosty  morning. 

"To-morrow  will  be  the  day  for  lions,"  exclaimed 
Jones. 

While  we  hugged  the  fire.  Navvy  brought  up  the  horses 
and  gave  them  their  oats.  The  hounds  sought  their 
shelter  and  the  lions  lay  hidden  in  their  beds  of  pine. 
The  round  red  sun  dropped  out  of  sight  beyond  the  trees, 
a  pink  glow  suffused  all  the  ridges ;  blue  shadows  gathered 
in  the  hollow,  shaded  purple  and  stole  upward.  A  brief 
twilight  succeeded  to  a  dark,  coldly  starlit  night. 

Once  again,  when  I  had  crawled  into  the  warm  hole 
of  my  sleeping  bag,  was  I  hailed  from  the  other  tent. 

Emett  called  me  twice,  and  as  I  answered,  I  heard 
Jones  remonstrating  in  a  low  voice. 

"Shore,  Jones  has  got  'era!"  yelled  Jim.  "He  can't 
keep  it  a  secret  no  longer." 


ROPING  LIONS  IN  THE  GRAND  CANYON    141 

"Hey,  Jones,"  I  cried,  "do  you  remember  laughing  at 
me?" 

"No,  I  don't,"  growled  Jones. 

" Listen  to  this :  Haw-haw!  haw!  haw!  ho-ho!  ho-ho! 
bueno!  bueno!"  and  I  wound  up  with  a  string  of  "hi! 
hi!  hi!  hi!  hi!" 

The  hounds  rose  up  in  a  body  and  began  to  yelp. 

"Lie  down,  pups,"  I  called  to  them.  "Nothing  doing 
for  you.     It's  only  Jones  has  got  'em." 

XII 

When  we  trooped  out  of  the  pines  next  morning,  the 
sun,  rising  gloriously  bright,  had  already  taken  off  the 
keen  edge  of  the  frosty  air,  presaging  a  warm  day.  The 
white  ridges  glistened;  the  bunches  of  sage  scintillated, 
and  the  cedars,  tipped  in  snow,  resembled  trees  with 
brilliant  blossoms. 

We  lost  no  time  riding  for  the  mouth  of  Left  Canyon, 
into  which  Jim  had  trailed  the  three  lions.  On  the 
way  the  snow,  as  we  had  expected,  began  to  thin  out, 
and  it  failed  altogether  under  the  cedars,  though  there 
was  enough  on  the  branches  to  give  us  a  drenching. 

Jim  reined  in  on  the  verge  of  a  narrow  gorge,  and 
informed  us  the  cave  was  below.  Jones  looked  the 
ground  over  and  said  Jim  had  better  take  the  hounds 
down  while  the  rest  of  us  remained  above  to  await 
developments. 

Jim  went  down  on  foot,  calling  the  hounds  and  hold- 
ing them  close.  We  listened  eagerly  for  him  to  yell  or 
the  pack  to  open  up,  but  we  were  disappointed.  In  less 
than  half  an  hour  Jim  came  climbing  out,  with  the  in- 
formation that  the  lions  had  left  the  cave,  probably  the 
evening  after  he  had  chased  them  there. 

"Well,  then,"  said  Jones,  "let's  split  the  pack,  and 


142  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

hunt  round  the  rims  of  these  canyons.  We  can  signal 
to  each  other  if  necessary." 

So  we  arranged  for  Jim  to  take  Ranger  and  the  pups 
across  Left  Canyon;  Emett  to  try  Middle  Canyon,  with 
Don  and  Moze,  and  we  were  to  perform  a  Hke  oflfice  in 
Right  Canyon  with  Sounder  and  Jude.  Emett  rode  back 
with  us,  leaving  us  where  we  crossed  Middle  Canyon. 

Jones  and  I  rimmed  a  mile  of  our  canyon  and  worked 
out  almost  to  the  west  end  of  the  Bay,  without  finding 
so  much  as  a  single  track,  so  we  started  to  retrace  our 
way.  The  sun  was  now  hot;  the  snow  all  gone;  the 
ground  dry  as  if  it  had  never  been  damp;  and  Jones 
grumbled  that  no  success  would  attend  our  efforts  this 
morning. 

We  reached  the  ragged  mouth  of  Right  Canyon,  where 
it  opened  into  the  deep,  wide  Bay,  and  because  we  hoped 
to  hear  our  companions  across  the  canyon,  we  rode  close 
to  the  rim.  Sounder  and  Jude  both  began  to  bark  on  a 
cliff;  however,  as  we  could  find  no  tracks  in  the  dust 
we  called  them  off.  Sounder  obeyed  reluctantly,  but 
Jude  wanted  to  get  down  over  the  wall. 

' '  They  scent  a  lion, ' '  averred  Jones.  ' '  Let's  put  them 
over  the  wall." 

Once  permitted  to  go,  the  hounds  needed  no  assist- 
ance. They  ran  up  and  down  the  rim  till  they  found  a 
crack.  Hardly  had  they  gone  out  of  sight  when  we 
heard  them  yelping.  We  rushed  to  the  rim  and  looked 
over.  The  first  step  was  short,  a  crumbled  section  of 
wall,  and  from  it  led  down  a  long  slope,  dotted  here  and 
there  with  cedars.     Both  hounds  were  baying  furiously. 

I  spied  Jude  with  her  paws  up  on  a  cedar,  and  above 
her  hung  a  lion,  so  close  that  she  could  nearly  reach 
him.     Sounder  was  not  yet  in  sight. 

"There!  There!"  I  cried,  directing  Jones'  glance. 
"Are  we  not  lucky?" 


ROPING  LIONS  IN  THE  GRAND  CANYON    143 

"I  see.  By  George!  Come,  we'll  go  down.  Leave 
everything  that  you  don't  absolutely  need." 

Spurs,  chaps,  gun,  coat,  hat,  I  left  on  the  rim,  taking 
only  my  camera  and  lasso.  I  had  forgotten  to  bring 
my  canteen.  We  descended  a  ladder  of  shaly  cliff,  the 
steps  of  which  broke  under  our  feet.  The  slope  below 
us  was  easy,  and  soon  we  stood  on  a  level  with  the  lion. 
The  cedar  was  small,  and  afforded  no  good  place  for  him. 
Evidently  he  jumped  from  the  slope  to  the  tree,  and  had 
hung  where  he  first  alighted. 

"Where's  Sounder?  Look  for  him,  I  hear  him  be- 
low.    This  lion  won't  stay  treed  long." 

I,  too,  heard  Sounder.  The  cedar  tree  obstructed  my 
view,  and  I  moved  aside.  A  hundred  feet  farther  down 
the  hound  bayed  under  a  tall  pifion.  High  in  the 
branches  I  saw  a  great  mass  of  yellow,  and  at  first  glance 
thought  Sounder  had  treed  old  Sultan.  How  I  yelled! 
Then  a  second  glance  showed  two  lions  close  together. 

"Two  more!  two  more!  look!  look!"  I  yelled  to 
Jones. 

"Hi!  Hi!  Hi!"  he  joined  his  robust  yell  to  mine, 
and  for  a  moment  we  made  the  canyon  bellow.  When 
we  stopped  for  breath  the  echoes  bayed  at  us  from  the 
opposite  walls. 

"Waa-hoo!"  Emett's  signal,  faint,  far  away,  soaring 
but  unmistakable,  floated  down  to  us.  Across  the  jut- 
ting capes  separating  the  mouths  of  these  canyons,  high 
above  them  on  the  rim  wall  of  the  opposite  side  of  the 
Bay,  stood  a  giant  white  horse  silhouetted  against  the 
white  sky.  They  made  a  brave  picture,  one  most  wel- 
come to  us.  We  yelled  in  chorus:  "Three  lions  treed! 
Three  lions  treed!  come  down — hurry!" 

A  crash  of  rolling  stones  made  us  wheel.  Jude's  lion 
had  jumped.  He  ran  straight  down,  drawing  Sounder 
from  his  guard.     Jude  went  tearing  after  theM. 


144  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

"I'll  follow;  you  stay  here.  Keep  them  up  there,  if 
you  can ! "  yelled  Jones.  Then  in  long  strides  he  passed 
down  out  of  sight  among  the  trees  and  crags. 

It  had  all  happened  so  quickly  that  I  could  scarcely 
realize  it.  The  yelping  of  the  hounds,  the  clattering 
of  stones,  grew  fainter,  telling  me  Jude  and  Sounder, 
with  Jones,  were  going  to  the  bottom  of  the  Bay. 

Both  lions  snarling  at  me  brought  me  to  a  keen  appre- 
ciation of  the  facts  in  the  case.  Two  full-grown  lions 
to  be  kept  treed  without  hounds,  without  a  companion, 
without  a  gun. 

"This  is  fine!  This  is  funny!"  I  cried,  and  for  a  mo- 
ment I  wanted  to  run.  But  the  same  grim,  deadly  feel- 
ing that  had  taken  me  with  Don  around  the  narrow 
shelf  now  rose  in  me  stronger  and  fiercer.  I  pro- 
nounced one  savage  malediction  upon  myself  for  leaving 
my  gun.  I  could  not  go  for  it;  I  would  have  to  make 
the  best  of  my  error,  and  in  the  wildness  born  of  the 
moment  I  swore  if  the  lions  would  stay  treed  for  the 
hounds  they  would  stay  treed  for  me. 

First  I  photographed  them  from  different  positions; 
then  I  took  up  my  stand  about  on  a  level  with  them  in 
an  open  place  on  the  slope  where  they  had  me  in  plain 
sight.  I  might  have  been  fifty  feet  from  them.  They 
showed  no  inclination  to  come  down. 

About  this  moment  I  heard  hounds  below,  coming 
down  from  the  left.  I  called  and  called,  but  they  passed 
on  down  the  canyon  bottom  in  the  direction  Jones  had 
taken. 

Presently  a  chorus  of  bays,  emphasized  by  Jones'  yell, 
^told  me  his  lion  had  treed  again. 

"Waa-hoo!"   rolled  down  from  above. 

I  saw  Emett  farther  to  the  left  from  the  point  where 
he  had  just  appeared. 

' '  Where — can — I — get — down  ? ' ' 


ROPING  LIONS  IN  THE  GRAND  CANYON    145 

I  surveyed  the  walls  of  the  Bay.  Cliff  on  cliff,  slide 
on  slide,  jumble,  crag,  and  ruin,  baffled  my  gaze.  But 
I  finally  picked  out  a  path. 

"Farther  to  the  left,"  I  yelled,  and  waited.  He 
passed  on,  Don  at  his  heels. 

"There,"  I  yelled  again,  "stop  there;  let  Don  go  down 
with  your  lasso,  and  come  yourself." 

I  watched  him  swing  the  hound  down  a  wall,  and  pull 
the  slip  noose  free.  Don  slid  to  the  edge  of  a  slope, 
trotted  to  the  right  and  left  of  crags,  threaded  the  nar- 
row places,  and  turned  in  the  direction  of  the  baying 
hounds.  He  passed  on  the  verge  of  precipices  that 
made  me  tremble  for  him ;  but  sure-footed  as  a  goat,  he 
went  on  safely  down,  to  disappear  far  to  my  right. 

Then  I  saw  Emett  sliding,  leg  wrapped  around  his 
lasso,  down  the  first  step  of  the  rim.  His  lasso,  doubled 
so  as  to  reach  round  a  cedar  above,  was  too  short  to 
extend  to  the  landing  below.  He  dropped,  raising  a 
cloud  of  dust,  and  starting  the  stones.  Pulling  one  end 
of  his  lasso  up  around  the  cedar  he  gathered  it  in  a  coil 
on  his  arm  and  faced  forward,  following  Don's  trail. 

What  strides  he  took!  In  the  clear  light,  with  that 
wild  red  and  yellow  background,  with  the  stones  and 
gravel  roaring  down,  streaming  over  the  walls  like  water- 
falls, he  seemed  a  giant  pursuing  a  foe.  From  time  to 
time  he  sent  up  a  yell  of  encouragement  that  wound 
down  the  canyon,  to  be  answered  by  Jones  and  the 
baying  hounds  and  then  the  strange  echoes.  At  last 
he  passed  out  of  sight  behind  the  crests  of  the  trees;  I 
heard  him  going  down,  down  till  the  sounds  came  up 
faint  and  hollow. 

I  was  left  absolutely  alone  with  my  two  lions  and 
never  did  a  hunter  so  delight  in  a  situation.  I  sat  there 
in  the  sun  watching  them.  For  a  long  time  they  were 
quiet,   listening.      But   as   the   bays   and    yells    below 


146  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

diminished  in  volume  and  occurrence  and  then  ceased 
altogether,  they  became  restless.  It  was  then  that  I, 
remembering  the  lion  I  had  held  on  top  of  the  crag, 
began  to  bark  like  a  hound.  The  lions  became  quiet 
once  more. 

I  bayed  them  for  an  hour.  My  voice  grew  from 
hoarse  to  hoarser,  and  finally  failed  in  my  throat.  The 
lions  immediately  grew  restless  again.  The  lower  one 
hissed,  spat  and  growled  at  me,  and  made  many  at- 
tempts to  start  down,  each  one  of  which  I  frustrated  by 
throwing  stones  under  the  tree.  At  length  he  made  one 
more  determined  effort,  turned  head  downward,  and 
stepped  from  branch  to  branch. 

I  dashed  down  the  incline  with  a  stone  in  one  hand 
and  a  long  club  in  the  other.  Instinctively  I  knew  I 
must  hurt  him — make  him  fear  me.  If  he  got  far 
enough  down  to  jump,  he  would  either  escape  or  have 
me  helpless.  I  aimed  deliberately  at  him,  and  hit  him 
square  in  the  ribs.  He  exploded  in  a  spit-roar  that 
raised  my  hair.  Directly  under  him  I  wielded  my 
club,  pounded  on  the  tree,  thrashed  at  the  branches 
and,  like  the  crazy  fool  that  I  was,  yelled  at  him: 

"Go  back!  Go  back!  Don't  you  dare  come  down! 
I'd  break  your  old  head  for  you!" 

Foolish  or  not,  this  means  effectually  stopped  the 
descent.  He  climbed  to  his  first  perch.  It  was  then, 
realizing  what  I  had  done,  that  I  would  certainly  have 
made  tracks  from  under  the  piiion,  if  I  had  not  heard 
the  faint  yelp  of  a  hound. 

I  listened.  It  came  again,  faint  but  clearer.  I  looked 
up  at  my  lions.  They  too  heard,  for  they  were  very 
still.  I  saw  how  strained  they  held  their  heads.  I 
backed  a  little  way  up  the  slope.  Then  the  faint  yelp 
floated  up  again  in  the  silence.  Such  dead,  strange 
silence,  that  seemed  never  to  have  been  broken !     I  saw 


ROPING  LIONS  IN  THE  GRAND  CANYON    147 

the  lions  quiver,  and  if  I  ever  heard  anything  in  my  life 
I  heard  their  hearts  thump.  The  yelp  wafted  up  again, 
closer  this  time.  I  recognized  it;  it  belonged  to  Don. 
The  great  hound  on  the  back  trail  of  the  other  lion  was 
coming  to  my  rescue. 

"It's  Don!  It's  Don!  It's  Don!"  I  cried,  shaking 
my  club  at  the  lions.  "It's  all  up  with  you  now!" 
What  feelings  stirred  me  then!  Pity  for  those  lions 
dominated  me.  Big,  tawny,  cruel  fellows  as  they  were, 
they  shivered  with  fright.  Their  sides  trembled.  But 
pity  did  not  hold  me  long;  Don's  yelp,  now  getting 
clear  and  sharp,  brought  back  the  rush  of  savage,  grim 
sensations. 

A  full-toned  bay  attracted  my  attention  from  the  lions 
to  the  downward  slope.  I  saw  a  yellow  form  moving 
under  the  trees  and  climbing  fast.     It  was  Don. 

"Hi!    Hi!    old  boy!"  I  yelled. 

Then  it  seemed  he  moved  up  like  a  shot  and  stood  all 
his  long  length,  forepaws  against  the  pinon,  his  deep 
bay  ringing  defiance  to  the  lions. 

It  was  a  great  relief,  not  to  say  a  probable  necessity, 
for  me  to  sit  down  just  then. 

"Now  come  down,"  I  said  to  my  lions;  "you  can't 
catch  that  hound,  and  you  can't  get  away  from  him. 

Moments  passed.  I  was  just  on  the  point  of  deciding 
to  go  down  to  hurry  up  my  comrades,  when  I  heard  the 
other  hounds  coming.  Yelp  on  yelp,  bay  on  bay,  made 
welcome  music  to  my  ears.  Then  a  black  and  yellow, 
swiftly  flying  string  of  hounds  bore  into  sight  down  the 
slope,  streaked  up  and  circled  the  pinon. 

Jones,  who  at  last  showed  his  tall  stooping  form  on 
the  steep  ascent,  seemed  as  long  in  coming  as  the  hounds 
had  been  swift. 

"Did  you  get  the  lion?  Where's  Emett?"  I  asked 
in  breathless  eagerness. 


148  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

"Lion  tied — all  fast,"  replied  the  panting  Jones. 
' '  Left  Emett — to  guard— him. ' ' 

"What  are  we  to  do  now?" 

"Wait — till  I  get  my  breath.  Think  out — a  plan. 
We  can't  get  both  lions— out  of  one  tree." 

"All  right,"  I  replied,  after  a  moment's  thought. 
"I'll  tie  Sounder  and  Moze.  You  go  up  the  tree.  That 
first  lion  will  jump,  sure;  he's  almost  ready  now.  Don 
and  the  other  hounds  will  tree  him  again  pretty  soon. 
If  he  runs  up  the  canyon,  well  and  good.  Then,  if  you 
can  get  the  lasso  on  the  other,  I'll  yell  for  Emett  to  come 
up  to  help  you,  and  I'll  follow  Don." 

Jones  began  the  ascent  of  the  pifion.  The  branches 
were  not  too  close,  affording  him  easy  climbing.  Before 
we  looked  for  even  a  move  on  the  part  of  the  lions,  the 
lower  one  began  stepping  down.  I  yelled  a  warning, 
but  Jones  did  not  have  time  to  take  advantage  of  it. 
He  had  half  turned,  meaning  to  swing  out  and  drop, 
when  the  lion  planted  both  forepaws  upon  his  back. 
Jones  went  sprawling  down  with  the  lion  almost  on  him. 

Don  had  his  teeth  in  the  lion  before  he  touched  the 
ground,  and  when  he  did  strike  the  rest  of  the  hounds 
were  on  him.  A  cloud  of  dust  rolled  down  the  slope. 
The  lion  broke  loose  and  with  great,  springy  bounds  ran 
up  the  canyon,  Don  and  his  followers  hot-footing  it  after 
him. 

Moze  and  Sounder  broke  the  dead  sapling  to  which 
I  had  tied  them,  and  dragging  it  behind  them,  endeav- 
ored in  frenzied  action  to  join  the  chase.  I  drew  them 
back,  loosening  the  rope,  so  in  case  the  other  lion  jumped 
I  could  free  them  quickly. 

Jones  calmly  gathered  himself  up,  rearranged  his  lasso, 
took  his  long  stick,  and  proceeded  to  mount  the  pifion 
again.  I  waited  till  I  saw  him  slip  the  noose  over  the 
lion's  head,  then  I  ran  down  the  slope  to  yell  for  Emett. 


ROPING  LIONS  IN  THE  GRAND  CANYON     149 

He  answered  at  once.  I  told  him  to  hurry  to  Jones' 
assistance.     With  that  I  headed  up  the  canyon. 

I  hung  close  to  the  broad  trail  left  by  the  lion  and  his 
pursuers.  I  passed  perilously  near  the  brink  of  preci- 
pices, but  fear  of  them  was  not  in  me  that  day.  I  passed 
out  of  the  Bay  into  the  mouth  of  Left  Canyon,  and  began 
to  climb.  The  baying  of  the  hounds  directed  me.  In 
the  box  of  yellow  walls  the  chorus  seemed  to  come  from 
a  hundred  dogs. 

When  I  found  them,  close  to  a  low  cliff,  baying  the 
lion  in  a  thick,  dark  pifion,  Ranger  leaped  into  my  arms 
and  next  Don  stood  up  against  me  with  his  paws  on  my 
shoulders.  These  were  strange  actions,  and  though  I 
marked  it  at  the  moment,  I  had  ceased  to  wonder  at 
our  hounds.  I  took  one  picture  as  the  lion  sat  in  the 
dark  shade,  and  then  climbed  to  the  low  cliff  and  sat 
down.  I  called  Don  to  me  and  held  him.  In  case  our 
quarry  leaped  upon  the  cliff  I  wanted  a  hound  to  put 
quickly  on  his  trail. 

Another  hour  passed.  It  must  have  been  a  dark  hour 
for  the  lion — he  looked  as  if  it  were — and  one  of  im- 
patience for  the  baying  hounds,  but  for  me  it  was  a  full 
hour.  Alone  with  the  hounds  and  a  lion,  far  from  the 
walks  of  men,  walled  in  by  the  wild-colored  cliffs,  with 
the  dry,  sweet  smell  of  cedar  and  pinon,  I  asked  no  more. 

Sounder  and  Moze,  vociferously  venting  their  arrival, 

were  forerunners  to  Jones.     I  saw  his  gray  locks  waving 

in  the  breeze,  and  yelled  for  him  to  take  his  time.     As 

he  reached  me  the  lion  jumped  and  ran  up  the  canyon. 

This  suited  me,  for  I  knew  he  would  take  to  a  tree  soon 

and  the  farther  up  he  went  the  less  distance  we  would 

have  to  pack  him.     From  the  cliff  I  saw  him  run  up  a 

slope,  pass  a  big  cedar,  cunningly  turn  on  his  trail,  and 

then  climb  into  the  tree  and  hide  in  its  thickest  part. 

Don  passed  him,  got  off  the  trail,  and  ran  at  fault.     The 
11 


150  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

others,  so  used  to  his  leadership,  were  also  baffled.  But 
Jude,  crippled  and  slow,  brought  up  the  rear,  and  she 
did  not  go  a  yard  beyond  where  the  lion  turned.  She 
opened  up  her  deep  call  under  the  cedar,  and  in  a  moment 
the  howling  pack  were  around  her. 

Jones  and  I  toiled  laboriously  upward.  He  had 
brought  my  lasso,  and  he  handed  it  to  me  with  the 
significant  remark  that  I  would  soon  have  need  of  it. 

The  cedar  was  bushy  and  overhung  a  yellow,  bare 
slope  that  made  Jones  shake  his  head.  He  climbed  the 
tree,  lassoed  the  spitting  lion  and  then  leaped  down  to 
my  side.  By  united  and  determined  efforts  we  pulled 
the  lion  off  the  limb  and  let  him  down.  The  hounds 
began  to  leap  at  him.  We  both  roared  in  a  rage  at  them 
but  to  no  use. 

"Hold  him  there!"  shouted  Jones,  leaving  me  with 
the  lasso  while  he  sprang  forward. 

The  weight  of  the  animal  dragged  me  forward  and, 
had  I  not  taken  a  half  hitch  round  a  dead  snag,  w^ould 
have  lifted  me  off  my  feet  or  pulled  the  lasso  from  my 
hands.  As  it  was,  the  choking  lion,  now  within  reach 
of  the  furious,  leaping  hounds,  swung  to  and  fro  before 
my  face.  He  could  not  see  me,  but  his  frantic  lunges 
narrowly  missed  me. 

If  never  before,  Jones  then  showed  his  genius.  Don 
had  hold  of  the  lion's  flank,  and  Jones,  grabbing  the 
hound  by  the  hind  legs,  threw  him  down  the  slope.  Don 
fell  and  rolled  a  hundred  feet  before  he  caught  himself. 
Then  Jones  threw  old  Moze  rolling,  and  Ranger,  and 
all  except  faithful  Jude.  Before  they  could  get  back  he 
roped  the  lion  again  and  made  fast  to  a  tree.  Then  he 
yelled  for  me  to  let  go.  The  lion  fell.  Jones  grabbed 
the  lasso,  at  the  same  time  calling  for  me  to  stop  the 
hounds.  As  they  came  bounding  up  the  steep  slope,  I 
had  to  club  the  noble  fellows  into  submission. 


ROPING  LIONS  IN  THE  GRAND  CANYON    151 

Before  the  lion  recovered  wholly  from  his  severe  chok- 
ing, we  had  his  paws  bound  fast.  Then  he  could  only 
heave  his  tawny  sides,  glare  and  spit  at  us. 

"Now  what?"  asked  Jones.  "Emett  is  watching  the 
second  lion,  which  we  fastened  by  chain  and  lasso  to  a 
swinging  branch.  I'm  all  in.  My  heart  won't  stand 
any  more  climb." 

"You  go  to  camp  for  the  pack  horses,"  I  said  briefly. 
"Bring  them  all,  and  all  the  packs,  and  Navvy,  too. 
I'll  help  Emett  tie  up  the  second  lion,  and  then  we'll  pack 
them  both  up  here  to  this  one.  You  take  the  hounds 
with  you." 

"Can  you  tie  up  that  lion?"  asked  Jones.  "Mind 
you,  he's  loose  except  for  a  collar  and  chain.  His  claws 
haven't  been  clipped.  Besides,  it'll  be  an  awful  job  to 
pack  those  two  lions  up  here." 

"We  can  try,"  I  said.  "You  hustle  to  camp.  Your 
horse  is  right  up  back  of  here,  across  the  point,  if  I  don't 
mistake  my  bearings." 

Jones,  admonishing  me  again,  called  the  hounds  and 
wearily  climbed  the  slope.  I  waited  until  he  was  out  of 
hearing;  then  began  to  retrace  my  trail  down  into  the 
canyon.  I  made  the  descent  in  quick  time,  to  find 
Emett  standing  guard  over  the  lion.  The  beast  had 
been  tied  to  an  overhanging  branch  that  swung  violently 
with  every  move  he  made. 

"When  I  got  here,"  said  Emett,  "he  was  hanging  over 
the  side  of  that  rock,  almost  choked  to  death.  I  drove 
him  into  this  corner  between  the  rocks  and  the  tree, 
where  he  has  been  comparatively  quiet.  Now,  what's 
up?    Where  is  Jones?     Did  you  get  the  third  lion ? " 

I  related  what  had  occurred,  and  then  said  we  were  to 
tie  this  lion  and  pack  him  with  the  other  one  up  the 
canyon,  to  meet  Jones  and  the  horses. 

"All  right,"  replied  Emett,  with  a  grim  laugh.     "We'd 


152  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

better  get  at  it.  Now  I'm  some  worried  about  the  lion 
we  left  below.  He  ought  to  be  brought  up,  but  we  both 
can't  go.     This  lion  here  will  kill  himself." 

"What  will  the  other  one  weigh?" 

"All  of  one  hundred  and  fifty  pounds." 

"You  can't  pack  him  alone." 

"I'll  try,  and  I  reckon  that's  the  best  plan.  Watch 
this  fellow  and  keep  him  in  the  corner." 

Emett  left  me  then,  and  I  began  a  third  long  vigil 
beside  a  lion.  The  rest  was  more  than  welcome.  An 
hour  and  a  half  passed  before  I  heard  the  sliding  of 
stones  below,  which  told  me  that  Emett  was  coming. 
He  appeared  on  the  slope  almost  bent  double,  carrying 
the  lion,  head  downward,  before  him.  He  could  climb 
only  a  few  steps  without  lowering  his  burden  and  resting. 

I  ran  down  to  meet  him.  We  secured  a  stout  pole,  and 
slipping  this  between  the  lion's  paws,  below  where  they 
were  tied,  we  managed  to  carry  him  fairly  well,  and  after 
several  rests,  got  him  up  alongside  the  other. 

"Now  to  tie  that  rascal!"  exclaimed  Emett.  "Jones 
said  he  was  the  meanest  one  he'd  tackled,  and  I  believe 
it.  We'll  cut  a  piece  off  of  each  lasso,  and  unravel  them 
so  as  to  get  strings.  I  wish  Jones  hadn't  tied  the  lasso 
to  that  swinging  branch." 

"I'll  go  and  untie  it."  Acting  on  this  suggestion  I 
climbed  the  tree  and  started  out  on  the  branch.  The 
lion  growled  fiercely. 

"I'm  afraid  you'd  better  stop,"  warned  Emett. 
"That  branch  is  bending,  and  the  lion  can  reach  you." 

But  despite  this  I  slipped  out  a  couple  of  yards  farther, 
and  had  almost  gotten  to  the  knotted  lasso,  when  the 
branch  swayed  and  bent  alarmingly.  The  lion  sprang 
from  his  corner  and  crouched  under  me  snarling  and 
spitting,  with  every  indication  of  leaping. 

"Jump!    Jump!    Jump!"    shouted  Emett  hoarsely. 


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ROPING  LIONS  IN  THE  GRAND  CANYON    153 

I  3ared  not,  for  I  could  not  jump  far  enough  to  get  out 
of  the. lion's  reach.  I  raised  my  legs  and  began  to  slide 
myself  back  up  the  branch.  The  lion  leaped,  missing 
me,  but  scattering  the  dead  twigs.  Then  the  beast, 
beside  himself  with  fury,  half  leaped,  half  stood  up,  and 
reached  for  me.  I  looked  down  into  his  blazing  eyes, 
and  open  mouth  and  saw  his  white  fangs. 

Everything  grew  blurred  before  my  eyes.  I  des- 
perately fought  for  control  over  mind  and  muscle.  I 
heard  hoarse  roars  from  Emett.  Then  I  felt  a  hot, 
burning  pain  in  my  wrist,  which  stung  all  my  faculties 
into  keen  life  again. 

I  saw  the  lion's  beaked  claws  fastened  in  my  leather 
wrist-band.  At  the  same  instant  Emett  dashed  under 
the  branch,  and  grasped  the  lion's  tail.  One  powerful 
lunge  of  his  broad  shoulders  tore  the  lion  loose  and 
flung  him  down  the  slope  to  the  full  extent  of  his  lasso. 
Quick  as  thought  I  jumped  down,  and  just  in  time  to 
prevent  Emett  from  attacking  the  lion  with  the  heavy 
pole  we  had  used. 

' 'I'll  kill  him !     I'll  kill  him ! "  roared  Emett. 

"No  you  won't,"  I  replied,  quietly,  for  my  pain  had 
served  to  soothe  my  excitement  as  well  as  to  make  me 
more  determined.  "We'll  tie  up  the  darned  tiger, 
if  he  cuts  us  all  to  pieces.  You  know  how  Jones  will 
give  us  the  laugh  if  we  fail.     Here,  bind  up  my  wrist." 

Mention  of  Jones'  probable  ridicule  and  sight  of  my 
injury  cooled  Emett. 

"It's  a  nasty  scratch,"  he  said,  binding  my  handker- 
chief round  it.  "The  leather  saved  your  hand  from 
being  torn  off.  He's  an  ugly  brute,  but  you're  right, 
we'll  tie  him.  Now,  let's  each  take  a  lasso  and  worry 
him  till  we  get  hold  of  a  paw.  Then  we  can  stretch  him 
out." 

Jones  did  a  fiendish  thing  when  he  tied  that  lion  to 


154  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

the  swinging  branch.  It  was  almost  worse  than  having 
him  entirely  free.  He  had  a  circle  almost  twenty  feet  in 
diameter  in  which  he  could  run  and  leap  at  will.  It 
seemed  he  was  in  the  air  all  the  time.  First  at  Emett, 
than  at  me  he  sprang,  mouth  agape,  eyes  wild,  claws 
spread.  We  whipped  him  with  our  nooses,  but  not  one 
would  hold.  He  always  tore  it  off  before  we  could  draw 
it  tight.  I  secured  a  precarious  hold  on  one  hind  paw 
and  straightened  my  lasso. 

"That's  far  enough,"  cried  Emett.  "Now  hold  him 
tight;  don't  lift  him  off  the  ground." 

I  had  backed  up  the  slope.  Emett  faced  the  lion, 
noose  ready,  waiting  for  a  favorable  chance  to  rope  a 
front  paw.  The  lion  crouched  low  and  tense,  only  his 
long  tail  lashing  back  and  forth  across  my  lasso.  Emett 
threw  the  loop  in  front  of  the  spread  paws,  now  half 
sunk  into  the  dust. 

"Ease  up;  ease  up,"  said  he.  "I'll  tease  him  to  jump 
into  the  noose." 

I  let  my  rope  sag.  Emett  poked  a  stick  into  the  lion's 
face.  All  at  once  I  saw  the  slack  in  the  lasso  which  was 
tied  to  the  lion's  chain.  Before  I  could  yell  to  warn  my 
comrade  the  beast  leaped.  My  rope  burned  as  it  tore 
through  my  hands.  The  lion  sailed  into  the  air,  his 
paws  wide-spread  like  wings,  and  one  of  them  struck 
Emett  on  the  head  and  rolled  him  on  the  slope.  I  jerked 
back  on  my  rope  only  to  find  it  had  slipped  its  hold. 

"He  slugged  me  one,"  remarked  Emett,  calmly  rising 
and  picking  up  his  hat.     "Did  he  break  the  skin?" 

"No,  but  he  tore  your  hat  band  off,"  I  replied. 
"Let's  keep  at  him." 

For  a  few  moments  or  an  hour — no  one  will  ever  know 
how  long — we  ran  round  him,  raising  the  dust,  scatter- 
ing the  stones,  breaking  the  branches,  dodging  his  on- 
slaughts.    He  leaped  at  us  to  the  full  length  of  his  tether, 


ROPING  LIONS  IN  THE  GRAND  CANYON    155 

sailing  right  into  our  faces,  a  fierce,  uncowed,  tigerish 
beast.  If  it  had  not  been  for  the  collar  and  swivel  he 
would  have  choked  himself  a  hundred  times.  Quick  as 
a  cat,  supple,  powerful,  tireless,  he  kept  on  the  go, 
whirling,  bounding,  leaping,  rolling,  till  it  seemed  we 
would  never  catch  him. 

"If  anything  breaks,  he'll  get  one  of  us,"  cried  Emett. 
"I  felt  his  breath  that  time." 

"Lord!  How  I  wish  we  had  some  of  those  fellows 
here  who  say  lions  are  rank  cowards!"  I  exclaimed. 

In  one  of  his  sweeping  side  swings  the  lion  struck  the 
rock  and  hung  there  on  its  flat  surface  with  his  tail  hang- 
ing over. 

"Attract  his  attention,"  shouted  Emett,  "but  don't 
get  too  close.     Don't  make  him  jump." 

While  I  slowly  manoeuvered  in  front  of  the  lion, 
Emett  slipped  behind  the  rock,  lunged  for  the  long  tail 
and  got  a  good  hold  of  it.  Then  with  a  whoop  he  ran 
around  the  rock,  carrying  the  kicking,  squalling  lion 
clear  of  the  ground. 

* '  Now's  your  chance,"  he  yelled.  * '  Rope  a  hind  foot ! 
I  can  hold  him." 

In  a  second  I  had  a  noose  fast  on  both  hind  paws,  and 
then  passed  my  rope  to  Emett.  While  he  held  the  lion 
I  again  climbed  the  tree,  untied  the  knot  that  had  caused 
so  much  trouble,  and  very  shortly  we  had  our  obstinate 
captive  stretched  out  between  two  trees.  After  that  we 
took  a  much  needed  breathing  spell. 

"Not  very  scientific,"  growled  Emett,  by  way  of 
apologizing  for  our  crude  work,  "but  we  had  to  get  him 
some  way." 

"Emett,  do  you  know  I  believe  Jones  put  up  a  job 
on  us?"  I  said. 

"Well,  maybe  he  did.  We  had  the  job  all  right. 
But  we'll  make  short  work  of  him  now." 


156  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

He  certainly  went  at  it  in  a  way  that  alarmed  me  and 
would  have  electrified  Jones.  While  I  held  the  chain 
Emett  muzzled  the  lion  with  a  stick  and  a  strand  of 
lasso.  His  big  blacksmith's  hands  held,  twisted  and 
tied  with  remorseless  strength. 

"Now  for  the  hardest  part  of  it,"  said  he,  "packing 
him  up." 

We  toiled  and  drudged  upward,  resting  every  few 
yards,  wet  with  sweat,  boiling  with  heat,  parching  for 
water.  We  slipped  and  fell,  got  up  to  slip  and  fall  again. 
The  dust  choked  us.  We  senselessly  risked  our  lives  on 
the  brinks  of  precipices.  We  had  no  thought  save  to 
get  the  lion  up.  One  hour  of  unremitting  labor  saw  our 
task  finished,  so  far.  Then  we  wearily  went  down  for 
the  other. 

"This  one  is  the  heaviest,"  gloomily  said  Emett. 

We  had  to  climb  partly  sidewise  with  the  pole  in  the 
hollow  of  our  elbows.  The  lion  dragged  head  downward, 
catching  in  the  brush  and  on  the  stones.  Our  rests 
became  more  frequent.  Emett,  who  had  the  downward 
end  of  the  pole,  and  therefore  thrice  the  weight,  whistled 
when  he  drew  breath.  Half  the  time  I  saw  red  mist 
before  my  eyes.     How  I  hated  the  sliding  stones! 

"Wait,"  panted  Emett  once.  "You're — younger — 
than  me — wait ! ' ' 

For  that  Mormon  giant — used  all  his  days  to  strenu- 
ous toil,  peril  and  privation — to  ask  me  to  wait  for  him, 
was  a  compliment  which  I  valued  more  than  any  I  had 
ever  received. 

At  last  we  dropped  our  burden  in  the  shade  of  a  cedar 
where  the  other  lions  lay,  and  we  stretched  ourselves. 
A  long,  sweet  rest  came  abruptly  to  end  with  Emett's 
next  words. 

"The  lions  are  choking!  They're  dying  of  thirst! 
We  must  have  water!" 


ROPING  LIONS  IN  THE  GRAND  CANYON    157 

One  glance  at  the  poor,  gasping,  frothing  beasts,  proved 
to  me  the  nature  of  our  extremity. 

"Water  in  this  desert!  Where  will  we  find  it?  Oh! 
why,  did  I  forget  my  canteen!" 

After  all  our  hopes,  our  efforts,  our  tragedies,  and 
finally  our  wonderful  good  fortune,  to  lose  these  beautiful 
lions  for  lack  of  a  little  water  was  sickening,  maddening. 

"Think  quick!"  cried  Emett.  "I'm  no  good;  I'm  all 
in.  But  you  must  find  water.  It  snowed  yesterday. 
There's  water  somewhere." 

Into  my  mind  flashed  a  picture  of  the  many  little 
pockets  beaten  by  rains  into  the  shelves  and  promon- 
tories of  the  canyon  rim.  With  the  thought  I  was  on 
the  jump.  I  ran;  I  climbed;  I  seemed  to  have  wings; 
I  reached  the  rim,  and  hurried  along  it  with  eager  gaze. 
I  swung  down  on  a  cedar  branch  to  a  projecting  point 
of  rock.  Small  depressions  were  everywhere  still  damp, 
but  the  water  had  evaporated.  But  I  would  not  give  up. 
I  jumped  from  rock  to  rock,  and  climbed  over  scaly 
ledges,  and  set  tons  of  yellow  shale  into  motion.  And 
I  found  on  a  ragged  promontory  many  little,  round 
holes,  some  a  foot  deep,  all  full  of  clear  water.  Using 
my  handkerchief  as  a  sponge  I  filled  my  cap. 

Then  began  my  journey  down.  I  carried  the  cap 
with  both  hands  and  balanced  myself  like  a  tight-rope 
performer.  I  zigzaged  the  slopes;  slipped  over  stones; 
leaped  fissures  and  traversed  yellow  slides.  I  safely 
descended  places  that  in  an  ordinary  moment  would 
have  presented  insurmountable  obstacles,  and  burst 
down  upon  Emett  with  an  Indian  yell  of  triumph. 

"Good!"  ejaculated  he.  If  I  had  not  known  it  al- 
ready, the  way  his  face  changed  would  have  told  me  of 
his  love  for  animals.  He  grasped  a  lion  by  the  ears  and 
held  his  head  up.  I  saturated  my  handkerchief  and 
squeezed    the    water    into    his    mouth.     He    wheezed. 


158  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

coughed,  choked,  but  to  our  joy  he  swallowed.  He  had 
to  swallow.  One  after  the  other  we  served  them  so, 
seeing  with  unmistakable  relief  the  sure  signs  of  recovery. 
Their  eyes  cleared  and  brightened;  the  dry  coughing 
that  distressed  us  so  ceased;  the  froth  came  no  more. 
The  savage  fellow  that  had  fought  us  to  a  standstill,  and 
for  which  we  had  named  him  Spitfire,  raised  his  head, 
the  gold  in  his  beautiful  eyes  darkened  to  fire  and  he 
growled  his  return  to  life  and  defiance. 

Emett  and  I  sank  back  in  unutterable  relief. 

"Waa-hoo!"  Jones'  yell  came,  breaking  the  warm 
quiet  of  the  slope.  Our  comrade  appeared  riding  down. 
The  voice  of  the  Indian,  calling  to  Marc,  mingled  with 
the  ringing  of  iron-shod  hoofs  on  the  stones. 

Jones  surveyed  the  small  level  spot  in  the  shade  of 
the  cedars.  He  gazed  from  the  lions  to  us,  his  stern  face 
relaxed,  and  his  dry  laugh  cracked. 

"Doggone  me,  if  you  didn't  do  it!" 

xni 

A  strange  procession  soon  emerged  from  Left  Canyon 
and  stranger  to  us  than  the  lion  heads  bobbing  out  of 
the  alfagoes  was  the  sight  of  Navvy  riding  in  front  of 
the  lions.  I  kept  well  in  the  rear,  for  if  anything  hap- 
pened, which  I  calculated  was  more  than  likely,  I  wanted 
to  see  it.  Before  we  had  reached  the  outskirts  of  pines, 
I  observed  that  the  piece  of  lasso  around  Spitfire's  nose 
had  worked  loose. 

Just  as  I  was  about  to  make  this  known  to  Jones,  the 
lion  opened  a  corner  of  his  mouth  and  fastened  his  teeth 
in  the  Navajo's  overalls.  He  did  not  catch  the  flesh, 
for  when  Navvy  turned  around  he  wore  only  an  expres- 
sion of  curiosity.  But  when  he  saw  Spitfire  chewing  him 
he  uttered  a  shrill  scream  and  fell  sidewise  off  his  horse. 


ROPING  LIONS  IN  THE  GRAND  CANYON     159 

Then  two  difficulties  presented  themselves  to  us,  to 
catch  the  frightened  horse  and  persuade  the  Indian  he 
had  not  been  bitten.  We  failed  in  the  latter.  Navvy- 
gave  us  and  the  lions  a  wide  berth,  and  walked  to  camp. 

Jim  was  waiting  for  us,  and  said  he  had  chased  a  lion 
south  along  the  rim  till  the  hounds  got  away  from  him. 

Spitfire,  having  already  been  chained,  was  the  first 
lion  we  endeavored  to  introduce  to  our  family  of  captives. 
He  raised  such  a  fearful  row  that  we  had  to  remove  him 
some  distance  from  the  others. 

"We  have  two  dog  chains,"  said  Jones,  "but  not  a 
collar  or  a  swivel  in  camp.  We  can't  chain  the  lions 
without  swivels.  They'd  choke  themselves  in  two 
minutes." 

Once  more,  for  the  hundredth  time,  Emett  came  to 
our  rescue  with  his  inventive  and  mechanical  skill.  He 
took  the  largest  pair  of  hobbles  we  had,  and  with  an 
axe,  a  knife  and  Jones'  wire  nippers,  fashioned  two 
collars  with  swivels  that  for  strength  and  serviceable- 
ness  improved  somewhat  on  those  we  had  bought. 

Darkness  was  enveloping  the  forest  when  we  finished 
supper.  I  fell  into  my  bed  and,  despite  the  throbbing 
and  burning  of  my  wrist,  soon  lapsed  into  slumber.  And 
I  crawled  out  next  morning  late  for  breakfast,  stiff, 
worn  out,  crippled,  but  happy.  Six  lions  roaring  a  con- 
cert for  me  was  quite  conducive  to  contentment. 

Emett  interestingly  engaged  himself  on  a  new  pair  of 
trousers,  w^hich  he  had  contrived  to  produce  from  two 
of  our  empty  meal-bags.  The  lower  half  of  his  overalls 
had  gone  to  decorate  the  cedar  spikes  and  brush,  and 
these  new  bag-leg  trousers,  while  somewhat  remarkable 
for  design,  answered  the  purpose  well  enough.  Jones' 
coat  was  somewhere  along  the  canyon  rim,  his  shoes 
were  full  of  holes,  his  shirt  in  strips,  and  his  trousers  in 
rags.     Jim  looked  like  a  scarecrow.     My  clothes,  being 


i6o  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

of  heavy  waterproofed  duck,  had  stood  the  hard  usage 
in  a  manner  to  bring  forth  the  unanimous  admiration 
of  my  companions, 

"Well,  fellows,"  said  Jones,  "there's  six  lions,  and 
that's  more  than  we  can  pack  out  of  here.  Have  you 
had  enough  hunting?    I  have." 

"And  I,"  rejoined  Emett, 

"Shore  you  can  bet  I  have,"  drawled  Jim. 

"One  more  day,  boys,  and  then  I've  done,"  said  I. 
' '  Only  one  more  day ! ' ' 

Signs  of  relief  on  the  faces  of  my  good  comrades  showed 
how  they  took  this  evidence  of  my  satisfied  ambition. 

I  spent  all  the  afternoon  with  the  lions,  photographing 
them,  listening  to  them  spit  and  growl,  watching  them 
fight  their  chains,  and  roll  up  like  balls  of  fire.  From 
different  parts  of  the  forest  I  tried  to  creep  unsuspected 
upon  them;  but  always  when  I  peeped  out  from  behind 
a  tree  or  log,  every  pair  of  ears  would  be  erect,  every 
pair  of  eyes  gleaming  and  suspicious. 

Spitfire  afforded  more  amusement  than  all  the  others. 
He  had  indeed  the  temper  of  a  king;  he  had  been  born 
for  sovereignty,  not  slavery.  To  intimidate  me  he  tried 
every  manner  of  expression  and  utterance,  and  failing, 
he  always  ended  with  a  spring  in  the  air  to  the  length 
of  his  chain.  This  means  was  always  effective.  I  sim- 
ply could  not  stand  still  when  he  leaped;  and  in  turn 
I  tried  every  artifice  I  could  think  of  to  make  him  back 
away  from  me,  to  take  refuge  behind  his  tree.  I  ran  at 
him  with  a  club  as  if  I  were  going  to  kill  him.  He 
waited,  crouching.  Finally,  in  dire  extremity,  I  be- 
thought me  of  a  red  flannel  hood  that  Emett  had  given 
me,  saying  I  might  use  it  on  cold  nights.  This  was 
indeed  a  weird,  flaming  headgear,  falling  like  a  cloak 
down  over  the  shoulders.  I  put  it  on,  and,  camera  in 
hand,  started  to  crawl  on  all  fours  toward  Spitfire. 


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ROPING  LIONS  IN  THE  GRAND  CANYON    i6i 

I  needed  no  one  to  tell  me  that  this  proceeding  was 
entirely  beyond  his  comprehension.  In  his  astonish- 
ment he  forgot  to  spit  and  growl,  and  he  backed  behind 
the  little  pine,  from  which  he  regarded  me  with  growing 
perplexity.  Then,  having  revenged  myself  on  him,  and 
getting  a  picture,  I  left  him  in  peace. 

XIV 

I  awoke  before  dawn,  and  lay  watching  the  dark 
shadows  change  into  gray,  and  gray  into  light.  The 
Navajo  chanted  solemnly  and  low  his  morning  song.  I 
got  up  with  the  keen  eagerness  of  the  hunter  who  faces 
the  last  day  of  his  hunt. 

I  warmed  my  frozen  fingers  at  the  fire.  A  hot  break- 
fast smoked  on  the  red  coals.  We  ate  while  Navvy  fed 
and  saddled  the  horses. 

"Shore,  they'll  be  somethin'  doin'  to-day,"  said  Jim, 
fatalistically. 

"We  haven't  crippled  a  horse  yet,"  put  in  Emett  hope- 
fully. Don  led  the  pack  and  us  down  the  ridge,  out  of 
the  pines  into  the  sage.  The  sun,  a  red  ball,  glared  out 
of  the  eastern  mist,  shedding  a  dull  glow  on  the  ramparts 
of  the  far  canyon  walls.  A  herd  of  white-tailed  deer 
scattered  before  the  hounds.  Blue  grouse  whirred  from 
under  our  horses'  feet. 

"Spread  out,"  ordered  Jones,  and  though  he  meant  the 
hounds,  we  all  followed  his  suggestion,  as  the  wisest 
course. 

Ranger  began  to  work  up  the  sage  ridge  to  the  right. 
Jones,  Emett  and  I  followed,  while  Jim  rode  away  to  the 
left.  Gradually  the  space  widened,  and  as  we  neared 
the  cedars,  a  sharply  defined,  deep  canyon  separated  us. 

We  heard  Don  open  up,  then  Sounder.  Ranger  left 
the  trail  he  was  trying  to  work  out  in  the  thick  sage,  and 


i62  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

bounded  in  the  direction  of  the  rest  of  the  pack.  We 
reined  in  to  listen. 

First  Don,  then  Sounder,  then  Jude,  then  one  of  the 
pups  bayed  eagerly,  telling  us  they  were  hunting  hard. 
Suddenly  the  bays  blended  in  one  savage  sound. 

"Hi!  Hi!  Hi!"  cracked  the  cool,  thin  air.  We  saw 
Jim  wave  his  hand  from  the  far  side  of  the  canyon, 
spur  his  horse  into  action,  and  disappear  into  the  cedars. 

"Stick  close  together,"  yelled  Jones,  as  we  launched 
forward.  We  made  the  mistake  of  not  going  back  to 
cross  the  canyon,  for  the  hounds  soon  went  up  the  oppo- 
site side.  As  we  rode  on  and  on,  the  sounds  of  the  chase 
lessened,  and  finally  ceased.  To  our  great  chagrin  we 
found  it  necessary  to  retrace  our  steps,  and  when  we  did 
get  over  the  deep  gully,  so  much  time  had  elapsed  that 
we  despaired  of  coming  up  with  Jim.  Emett  led,  keep- 
ing close  on  Jim's  trail,  which  showed  plain  in  the  dust, 
and  we  followed. 

Up  and  down  ravines,  over  ridges,  through  sage  fiats 
and  cedar  forests,  to  and  fro,  around  and  around,  we 
trailed  Jim  and  the  hounds.  From  time  to  time  one  of 
us  let  let  out  a  long  yell. 

"I  see  a  big  lion  track,"  called  Jones  once,  and  that 
stirred  us  on  faster.  Fully  an  hour  passed  before  Jones 
halted  us,  saying  we  had  best  try  a  signal.  I  dis- 
mounted, while  Emett  rolled  his  great  voice  through 
the  cedars. 

A  long  silence  ensued.  From  the  depths  of  the  forest 
Jim's  answer  struck  faintly  on  my  ear.  With  a  word  to 
my  compainions  I  leaped  on  my  mustang  and  led  the 
way.  I  rode  as  far  as  I  could  mark  a  straight  line  with 
my  eye,  then  stopped  to  wait  for  another  cry.  In  this 
way,  slowly  but  surely  we  closed  in  on  Jim. 

We  found  him  on  the  verge  of  the  Bay,  in  the  small 
glade  where  I  had  left  my  horse  the  day  I  followed  Don 


ROPING  LIONS  IN  THE  GRAND  CANYON     163 

alone  down  the  canyon.  Jim  was  engaged  in  binding  up 
the  leg  of  his  horse.  The  baying  of  the  hounds  floated 
up  over  the  rim. 

' '  What's  up  ? "  queried  Jones. 

"Old  Sultan.  That's  what,"  replied  Jim.  Wc  run 
plumb  into  him.  We've  had  him  in  five  trees.  It  ain't 
been  long  since  he  was  in  that  cedar  there.  When  he 
jumped  the  yellow  pup  was  in  the  way  an'  got  killed. 
My  horse  just  managed  to  jump  clear  of  the  big  lion, 
an'  as  it  was,  nearly  broke  his  leg." 

Emett  examined  the  leg  and  pronounced  it  badly 
strained,  and  advised  Jim  to  lead  the  horse  back  to  camp. 
Jones  and  I  stood  a  moment  over  the  remains  of  the 
yellow  pup,  and  presently  Emett  joined  us. 

"He  was  the  most  playful  one  of  the  pack,"  said 
Emett,  and  then  he  placed  the  limp,  bloody  body  in  a 
crack,  and  laid  several  slabs  of  stone  over  it. 

"Hurry  after  the  other  hounds,"  said  Jim.  That  lion 
will  kill  them  one  by  one.     An'  look  out  for  him!" 

If  we  needed  an  incentive,  the  danger  threatening  the 
hounds  furnished  one;  but  I  calculated  the  death  of  the 
pup  was  enough.  Emett  had  a  flare  in  his  eye,  Jones 
looked  darker  and  more  grim  than  ever,  and  I  had  sen- 
sations that  boded  ill  to  old  Sultan. 

"Fellows,"  I  said,  "I've  been  down  this  place,  and  I 
know  where  the  old  brute  has  gone;   so  come  on." 

I  laid  aside  my  coat,  chaps  and  rifle,  feeling  that  the 
business  ahead  was  stern  and  difficult.  Then  I  faced  the 
canyon.  Down  slopes,  among  rocks,  under  piiions, 
around  yellow  walls,  along  slides,  the  two  big  men  fol- 
lowed me  with  heavy  steps.  We  reached  the  white 
stream-bed,  and  sliding,  slipping,  jumping,  always  down 
and  down,  we  came  at  last  within  sound  of  the  hounds. 
We  found  them  baying  wildly  under  a  pifion  on  the 
brink  of  the  deep  cove. 


i64  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

Then,  at  once,  we  all  saw  old  Sultan  close  at  hand. 
He  was  of  immense  size;  his  color  was  almost  gray; 
his  head  huge,  his  paws  heavy  and  round.  He  did  not 
spit,  nor  snarl,  nor  growl;  he  did  not  look  at  the  hounds, 
but  kept  his  half -shut  eyes  upon  us. 

We  had  no  time  to  make  a  move  before  he  left  his 
perch  and  hit  the  ground  with  a  thud.  He  walked  by 
the  baying  hounds,  looked  over  the  brink  of  the  cove, 
and  without  an  instant  of  hesitation,  leaped  down. 
The  rattling  crash  of  sliding  stones  came  up  with  a  cloud 
of  dust.  Then  we  saw  him  leisurely  picking  his  way 
among  the  rough  stones. 

Exclamations  from  the  three  of  us  attested  to  what  we 
thought  of  that  leap. 

"Look  the  place  over,"  called  Jones.  "I  think  we've 
got  him." 

The  cove  was  a  hole  hollowed  out  by  running  water. 
At  its  head,  where  the  perpendicular  wall  curved,  the 
height  was  not  less  than  forty  feet.  The  walls  became 
higher  as  the  cove  deepened  toward  the  canyon.  It  had 
a  length  of  perhaps  a  hundred  yards,  and  a  width  of 
perhaps  half  as  many.  The  floor  was  mass  on  mass  of 
splintered  rock. 

"Let  the  hounds  down  on  a  lasso,"  said  Jones. 

Easier  said  than  done!  Sounder,  Ranger,  Jude  re- 
fused. Old  Moze  grumbled  and  broke  away.  But  Don, 
stern  and  savage,  allowed  Jones  to  tie  him  in  a  slip  noose. 

"It's  a  shame  to  send  that  grand  hound  to  his  death," 
protested  Emett. 

"We'll  all  go  down,"  declared  Jones. 

"We  can't.  One  will  have  to  stay  up  here  to  help 
the  other  two  out,"  replied  Emett. 

"You're  the  strongest;  you  stay  up,"  said  Jones. 
"Better  work  along  the  wall  and  see  if  you  can  locate 
the  lion." 


o 

H 


o 

s 


RIDING    WITH    A    NAVAJO 


ROPING  LIONS  IN  THE  GRAND  CANYON    165 

We  let  Don  down  into  the  hole.  He  kicked  himself 
loose  before  reaching  the  bottom  and  then,  yelping,  he 
went  out  of  sight  among  the  boulders.  Moze,  as  if 
ashamed,  came  whining  to  us.  We  slipped  a  noose 
around  him  and  lowered  him,  kicking  and  barking,  to 
the  rocky  floor.  Jones  made  the  lasso  fast  to  a  cedar 
root,  and  I  slid  down,  like  a  flash,  burning  my  hands. 
Jones  swung  himself  over,  wrapped  his  leg  around  the 
rope,  and  came  down,  to  hit  the  ground  with  a  thump. 
Then,  lassos  in  hands,  we  began  clambering  over  the 
broken  fragments. 

For  a  few  moments  we  were  lost  to  sights  and  sounds 
away  from  our  immediate  vicinity.  The  bottom  of  the 
cove  afforded  hard  going.  Dead  pinons  and  cedars 
blocked  our  way;  the  great,  jagged  stones  offered  no 
passage.  We  crawled,  climbed,  and  jumped  from  piece 
to  piece. 

A  yell  from  Emett  halted  us.  We  saw  him  above, 
on  the  extreme  point  of  wall.  Waving  his  arms,  he 
yelled  unintelligible  commands  to  us.  The  fierce  bay- 
ing of  Don  and  Moze  added  to  our  desperate  energy. 

The  last  jumble  of  splintered  rock  cleared,  we  faced  a 
terrible  and  wonderful  scene. 

"Look!     Look!"  I  gasped  to  Jones. 

A  wide,  bare  strip  of  stone  lay  a  few  yards  beneath 
us;  and  in  the  center  of  this  last  step  sat  the  great  lion 
on  his  haunches  with  his  long  tail  lashing  out  over  the 
precipice.  Back  to  the  canyon,  he  confronted  the  furi- 
ous hounds;  his  demeanor  had  changed  to  one  of 
savage  apprehension. 

When  Jones  and  I  appeared,  old  Sultan  abruptly  turned 
his  back  to  the  hounds  and  looked  down  into  the  canyon. 
He  walked  the  whole  length  of  the  bare  rock  with  his 
head  stretched  over.  He  was  looking  for  a  niche  or  a 
step  whereby  he  might  again  elude  his  foes. 

12 


i66  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

f 

Faster  lashed  his  tail;    farther  and  farther  stretched 

his  neck.     He  stopped,  and  with  head  bent  so  far  over 

the  abyss  that  it  seemed  he  must  fall,  he  looked  and 

looked. 

How  grandly  he  fitted  the  savage  sublimity  of  that 
place!  The  tremendous  purple  canyon  depths  lay  be- 
neath him.  He  stood  on  the  last  step  of  his  mighty 
throne.  The  great  downward  slopes  had  failed  him. 
Majestically  and  slowly  he  turned  from  the  deep  that 
offered  no  hope. 

As  he  turned,  Jones  cast  the  noose  of  his  lasso  perfectly 
round  the  burly  neck.  Sultan  roared  and  worked  his 
jaws,  but  he  did  not  leap.  Jones  must  have  expected 
such  a  move,  for  he  fastened  his  rope  to  a  spur  of  rock. 
Standing  there,  revolver  gripped,  hearing  the  baying 
hounds,  the  roaring  lion,  and  Jones'  yells  mingled  with 
Emett's,  I  had  no  idea  what  to  do.  I  was  in  a  trance  of 
sensations. 

Old  Sultan  ran  rather  than  leaped  at  us.  Jones  evaded 
the  rush  by  falling  behind  a  stone,  but  still  did  not  get 
out  of  danger.  Don  flew  at  the  lion's  neck  and  Moze 
buried  his  teeth  in  a  flank.  Then  the  three  rolled  on 
the  rock  dangerously  near  the  verge. 

Bellowing,  Jones  grasped  the  lasso  and  pulled.  Still 
holding  my  revolver,  I  leaped  to  his  assistance,  and 
together  we  pulled  and  jerked.  Don  got  away  from  the 
lion  with  remarkable  quickness.  But  Moze,  slow  and 
dogged,  could  not  elude  the  outstretched  paws,  which 
fastened  in  his  side  and  leg.  We  pulled  so  hard  we 
slowly  raised  the  lion.  Moze,  never  whimpering,  clawed 
and  scratched  at  the  rock  in  his  efforts  to  escape.  The 
lion's  red  tongue  protruded  from  his  dripping  jaws.  We 
heard  the  rend  of  hide  as  our  efforts,  combined  with 
those  of  Moze,  loosed  him  from  the  great  yellow  claws. 

The   lion,   whirling    and    wrestling,  rolled    over  the 


ROPING  LIONS  IN  THE  GRAND  CANYON    167 

precipice.  When  the  rope  straightened  with  a  twang, 
had  it  not  been  fastened  to  the  rock,  Jones  and  I  would 
have  jerked  over  the  wall.  The  shock  threw  us  to  our 
knees. 

For  a  moment  we  did  not  realize  the  situation. 
Emett's  yells  awakened  us. 

' '  Pull !     Pull !     Pull ! ' '  roared  he. 

Then,  knowing  that  old  Sultan  would  hang  himself 
in  a  few  moments,  we  attempted  to  lift  him.  Jones 
pulled  till  his  back  cracked ;  I  pulled  till  I  saw  red  before 
my  eyes.  Again  and  again  we  tried.  We  could  lift  him 
only  a  few  feet.  Soon  exhausted,  we  had  to  desist  alto- 
gether. How  Emett  roared  and  raged  from  his  vantage- 
point  above!    He  could  see  the  lion  in  death  throes. 

Suddenly  he  quieted  down  with  the  words :  ' '  All  over ; 
all  over!"  Then  he  sat  still,  looking  into  space.  Jones 
sat  mopping  his  brow.  And  I,  all  my  hot  resentment 
vanished,  lay  on  the  rock,  with  eyes  on  the  distant  mesas. 

Presently  Jones  leaned  over  the  verge  with  my  lasso. 

"There,"  he  said,  "I've  roped  one  of  his  hind  legs. 
Now  we'll  pull  him  up  a  little,  then  we'll  fasten  this  rope, 
and  pull  on  the  other." 

So,  foot  by  foot,  we  worked  the  heavy  lion  up  over  the 
wall.  He  must  have  been  dead,  though  his  sides  heaved. 
Don  sniffed  at  him  in  disdain.  Moze,  dusty  and  bloody, 
with  a  large  strip  of  hide  hanging  from  his  flank,  came 
up  growling  low  and  deep,  and  gave  the  lion  a  last  venge- 
ful bite. 

"We've  been  fools,"  observed  Jones,  meditatively. 
"The  excitement  of  the  game  made  us  lose  our  wits. 
I'll  never  rope  another  lion." 

I  said  nothing.  While  Moze  licked  his  bloody  leg  and 
Don  lay  with  his  fine  head  on  my  knees,  Jones  began 
to  skin  old  Sultan.  Once  more  the  strange,  infinite 
silence  enfolded  the  canyon.     The  far-off  golden  walls 


i68  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

glistened  in  the  sun;  farther  down,  the  purple  clefts 
smoked.  The  many-hued  peaks  and  mesas,  aloof  from 
each  other,  rose  out  of  the  depths.  It  was  a  grand  and 
gloomy  scene  of  ruin  where  every  glistening  descent  of 
rock  was  but  a  page  of  earth's  history. 

It  brought  to  my  mind  a  faint  appreciation  of  what 
time  really  meant ;  it  spoke  of  an  age  of  former  men ;  it 
showed  me  the  lonesome  crags  of  eagles,  and  the  cliff 
lairs  of  lions ;  and  it  taught  mutely,  eloquently,  a  lesson 
of  life — that  men  are  still  savage,  still  driven  by  a  spirit 
to  roam,  to  hunt,  and  to  slay. 


CHAPTER  IV 

TONTO  BASIN 

THE  start  of  a  camping  trip,  the  getting  a  big  outfit 
together  and  packed,  and  on  the  move,  is  always  a 
difficult  and  laborsome  job.  Nevertheless,  for  me  the 
preparation  and  the  actual  getting  under  way  have 
always  been  matters  of  thrilling  interest.  This  start  of 
my  hunt  in  Arizona,  September  24,  1918,  was  partic- 
ularly momentous  because  I  had  brought  my  boy 
Romer  with  me  for  his  first  trip  into  the  wilds. 

It  may  be  that  the  boy  was  too  young  for  such  an 
undertaking.  His  mother  feared  he  would  be  injured; 
his  teachers  presaged  his  utter  ruin ;  his  old  nurse,  with 
whom  he  waged  war  until  he  was  free  of  her,  averred 
that  the  best  it  could  do  for  him  would  be  to  show  what 
kind  of  stuff  he  was  made  of.  His  uncle  R.  C.  was 
stoutly  in  favor  of  taking  him.  I  believe  the  balance 
fell  in  Romer's  favor  when  I  remembered  my  own  boy- 
hood. As  a  youngster  of  three  I  had  babbled  of  "bars 
an*  buffers,"  and  woven  fantastic  and  marvelous  tales 
of  fiction  about  my  imagined  adventures — a  habit,  alas ! 
I  have  never  yet  outgrown. 

Anyway  we  only  made  six  miles'  travel  on  this  Sep- 
tember twenty -fourth,  and  Romer  was  with  us. 

Indeed  he  was  omnipresent.  His  keen,  eager  joy  com- 
municated itself  to  me.  Once  he  rode  up  alongside  me 
and  said:  "Dad,  this's  great,  but  I'd  rather  do  like 
Buck  Duane. "  The  bo}?-  had  read  all  of  my  books,  in 
spite  of  parents  and  teachers,  and  he  knew  them  by 
heart,  and  invariably  liked  the  outlaws  and  gunmen  best 
of  all. 

169 


lyo  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

We  made  camp  at  sunset,  with  a  flare  of  gold  along  the 
west,  and  the  Peaks  rising  rosy  and  clear  to  the  north. 
We  camped  in  a  cut-over  pine  forest,  where  stumps  and 
lopped  tops  and  burned  deadfalls  made  an  aspect  of 
blackened  desolation.  From  a  distance,  however,  the 
scene  was  superb.  At  sunset  there  was  a  faint  wind 
which  soon  died  away. 

My  old  guide  on  so  many  trips  across  the  Painted 
Desert  was  in  charge  of  the  outfit.  He  was  a  wiry,  gray, 
old  pioneer,  over  seventy  years,  hollow-cheeked  and 
bronzed,  with  blue-gray  eyes  still  keen  with  fire.  He 
was  no  longer  robust,  but  he  was  tireless  and  willing. 
When  he  told  a  story  he  always  began :  "In  the  early 
days — "  His  son  Lee  had  charge  of  the  horses  of 
which  we  had  fourteen,  two  teams  and  ten  saddle 
horses.  Lee  was  a  typical  westerner  of  many  occupa- 
tions—  cowboy,  rider,  rancher,  cattleman.  He  was 
small,  thin,  supple,  quick,  tough  and  strong.  He  had 
a  bronzed  face,  always  chapped,  a  hooked  nose,  gray- 
blue  eyes  like  his  father's,  sharp  and  keen. 

Lee  had  engaged  the  only  man  he  could  find  for  a 
cook — Joe  Isbel,  a  tall,  lithe  cowboy,  straight  as  an 
Indian,  with  powerful  shoulders,  round  limbs,  and 
slender  waist,  and  Isbel  was  what  the  westerners 
called  a  broncho-buster.  He  was  a  prize-winning  lider 
at  all  the  rodeos.  Indeed,  his  seat  in  the  saddle  was 
individual  and  incomparable.  He  had  a  rough  red-blue 
face,  hard  and  rugged,  like  the  rocks  he  rode  over  so 
fearlessly,  and  his  eyes  were  bright  hazel,  steady  and 
hard.  Isbel's  vernacular  was  significant.  Speaking  of 
one  of  our  horses  he  said:  "Like  a  mule  he'll  be  your 
friend  for  twenty  years  to  git  a  chance  to  kick  you." 
Speaking  of  another  that  had  to  be  shod  he  said: 
"Shore,  he'll  step  high  to-morrow."  Isbel  appeared  to 
be  remarkably  efficient  as  camp-rustler  and  cook,  but 


TONTO  BASIN  171 

he  did  not  inspire  me  with  confidence.  In  speaking 
of  this  to  the  Doyles  I  found  them  non-committal  on  the 
subject.  .  Westerners  have  sensitive  feelings.  I  could 
not  tell  whether  they  were  offended  or  not,  and  I  half 
regretted  mentioning  my  lack  of  confidence  in  Isbel. 
As  it  turned  out,  however,  I  was  amply  justified. 

Sievert  Nielsen,  whom  I  have  mentioned  elsewhere, 
was  the  fourth  of  my  men. 

Darkness  had  enveloped  us  at  supper  time.  I  was 
tired  out,  but  the  red-embered  camp-fire,  the  cool  air, 
the  smell  of  wood-smoke,  and  the  white  stars  kept  me 
awake  awhile.  Romerhad  to  be  put  to  bed.  He  was 
wild  with  excitement.  ;We  had  had  a  sleeping-bag  made 
for  him  so  that  once  snugly  in  it,  with  the  flaps  buckled 
he  could  not  kick  off  the  blankets.  When  we  got  him 
into  it  he  quieted  down  and  took  exceeding  interest  in  his 
first  bed  in  the  open.  He  did  not,  however,  go  quickly 
to  sleep.  Presently  he  called  R.  C.  over  and  whispered: 
"Say,  Uncle  Rome,  I  coiled  a  lasso  an'  put  it  under 
Nielsen's  bed.  When  he's  asleep  you  go  pull  it.  He's 
tenderfoot  like  Dad  was.  He'll  think  it's  a  rattlesnake." 
This  trick  Romer  must  have  remembered  from  reading 
"The  Last  of  the  Plainsmen,"  where  I  related  what 
Buffalo  Jones'  cowboys  did  to  me.  Once  Romer  got 
that  secret  off  his  mind  he  fell  asleep. 

The  hour  we  spent  sitting  around  the  camp-fire  was  the 
most  pleasant  of  that  night,  though  I  did  not  know  it 
then.  The  smell  of  wood-smoke  and  the  glow  of  live 
coals  stirred  memories  of  other  camp-fires.  I  was  once 
more  enveloped  by  the  sweetness  and  peace  of  the  open, 
listening  to  the  sigh  of  the  wind,  and  the  faint  tinkle  of 
bells  on  the  hobbled  horses. 

An  uncomfortable  night  indeed  it  turned  out  to  be. 
Our  covers  were  scanty  and  did  not  number  among  them 
any  blankets.     The  bed  was  hard  as  a  rock,  and  lumpy. 


172  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

No  sleep !  As  the  night  wore  on  the  air  grew  colder,  and 
I  could  not  keep  warm.  At  four  a.m.  I  heard  the  howl- 
ing of  coyotes — a  thrilling  and  well  remembered  wild 
chorus.  After  that  perfect  stillness  reigned.  Presently 
I  saw  the  morning  star — big,  blue-white,  beautiful. 
Uncomfortable  hours  seemed  well  spent  if  the  reward 
was  sight  of  the  morning  star.  How  few  people  ever 
see  it!  How  very  few  ever  get  a  glimpse  of  it  on  a 
desert  dawn! 

Just  then,  about  five-thirty,  Romer  woke  up  and  yelled 
lustily:  "Dad!  My  nose's  froze."  This  was  a  signal 
for  me  to  laugh,  and  also  to  rise  heroically.  Not  difficult 
because  I  wanted  to  stay  in  bed,  but  because  I  could 
hardly  crawl  out!  Soon  we  had  a  fire  roaring.  At  six 
the  dawn  was  still  gray.  Cold  and  nipping  air,  frost  on 
everything,  pale  stars,  a  gold-red  light  in  the  east  were 
proofs  that  I  was  again  in  the  open.  Soon  a  rose-colored 
flush  beautified  the  Peaks. 

After  breakfast  we  had  trouble  with  the  horses.  This 
always  happened.  But  it  was  made  worse  this  morning 
because  a  young  cowboy  who  happened  along  took  upon 
himself  the  task  of  helping  Lee.  I  suspected  he  wanted 
to  show  off  a  little.  In  throwing  his  lasso  to  rope  one, 
the  noose  went  over  the  heads  of  two.  Then  he  tried  to 
hold  both  animals.  They  dragged  him,  pulled  the  lasso 
out  of  his  hands,  and  stampeded  the  other  horses.  These 
two  roped  together  thundered  off  with  the  noose  widen- 
ing. I  was  afraid  they  would  split  round  a  tree  or  stump, 
but  fortunately  the  noose  fell  off  one.  As  all  the  horses 
pounded  off  I  heard  Romer  remark  to  Isbel :  ' '  Say,  Joe, 
I  don't  see  any  medals  on  that  cowboy."  Isbel  roared, 
and  said:  "Wal,  Romer,  you  shore  hit  the  naU.  on  the 
haid!" 

Owing  to  that  stampede  we  did  not  get  saddled  and 
started  till  eleven  o'clock.     At  first  I  was  so  sore  and  stiff 


TONTO  BASIN  173 

from  the  hard  bed  that  I  rode  a  while  on  the  wagon  with 
Doyle.  Many  a  mile  I  had  ridden  with  him,  and  many 
a  story  he  had  related.  This  time  he  told  about  sitting 
on  a  jury  at  Prescott  where  they  brought  in  as  evidence 
bloody  shirts,  overalls,  guns,  knives,  until  there  was  such 
a  pile  that  the  table  would  not  hold  them.  Doyle  was  a 
mine  of  memories  of  the  early  days. 

Romer's  mount  was  a  little  black,  white-spotted  horse 
named  Rye.  Lee  Doyle  had  scoured  the  ranches  to  get 
this  pony  for  the  younster.  Rye  was  small  for  a  horse, 
about  the  size  of  an  Indian  mustang,  and  he  was  gentle, 
as  well  as  strong  and  fast.  Romer  had  been  given  riding 
lessons  all  that  summer  in  the  east,  and  upon  his  arrival 
at  Flagstaff  he  informed  me  that  he  could  ride.  I  pre- 
dicted he  would  be  in  the  wagon  before  noon  of  the 
second  day  out.  He  offered  to  bet  on  it.  I  told  him  I 
disapproved  of  betting.  He  seemed  to  me  to  be  daring, 
adaptable,  self-willed;  and  I  was  divided  between  pride 
and  anxiety  as  to  the  outcome  of  this  trip  for  him. 

In  the  afternoon  we  reached  Lake  Mary,  a  long,  ugly, 
muddy  pond  in  a  valley  between  pine-slopes.  Dead  and 
ghastly  trees  stood  in  the  water,  and  the  shores  were 
cattle-tracked.  Probably  to  the  ranchers  this  mud-hole 
was  a  pleasing  picture,  but  to  me,  who  loved  the  beauty 
of  the  desert  before  its  productiveness,  it  was  hideous. 
When  we  passed  Lake  Mary,  and  farther  on  the  last  of 
the  cut-over  timber-land,  we  began  to  get  into  wonderful 
country.  We  traveled  about  sixteen  miles,  rather  a 
small  day's  ride.  Romer  stayed  on  his  horse  all  through 
that  ride,  and  when  we  selected  a  camp  site  for  the  night 
he  said  to  me:   "Well,  you're  lucky  you  wouldn't  bet." 

Camp  that  evening  was  in  a  valley  with  stately  pines 
straggling  down  to  the  level.  On  the  other  slope  the 
pines  came  down  in  groups.  The  rim  of  this  opposite 
slope  was  high,  rugged,  iron-colored,  with  cracks  and 


174  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

holes.  Before  supper  I  walked  up  the  slope  back  of  our 
camp,  to  come  upon  level,  rocky  ground  for  a  mile,  then 
pines  again  leading  to  a  low,  green  mountain  with  lighter 
patches  of  aspen.  The  level,  open  strip  was  gray  in  color. 
Arizona  color  and  Arizona  country !  Gray  of  sage,  rocks, 
pines,  cedars,  pinons,  heights  and  depths  and  plains, 
wild  and  open  and  lonely — that  was  Arizona. 

That  night  I  obtained  some  rest  and  sleep,  lying  awake 
only  a  few  hours,  during  which  time  I  turned  from  side 
to  side  to  find  a  soft  place  in  the  hard  bed.  Under  such 
circumstances  I  always  thought  of  the  hard  beds  of  the 
Greeks  and  the  Spartans.  Next  day  we  rode  twenty- 
three  miles.  On  horseback  trips  like  this  it  was  every 
one  for  himself.  Sometimes  we  would  be  spread  out, 
all  separated ;  at  others  we  would  be  bunched ;  and  again 
we  would  ride  in  couples.  The  morning  was  an  ordeal 
for  me,  as  at  first  I  could  scarcely  sit  my  saddle;  in  the 
afternoon,  however,  riding  grew  to  be  less  severe.  The 
road  led  through  a  winding,  shallow  valley,  with  clumps 
of  pine  here  and  there,  and  cedars  on  the  slopes.  Romer 
rode  all  the  way,  half  the  time  with  his  feet  out  of  the 
stirrups,  like  a  western  boy  born  to  the  saddle,  and  he 
wanted  to  go  fast  all  the  time.  Camp  was  made  at  a 
place  called  Fulton  Spring.  It  might  have  been  a  spring 
once,  but  now  it  was  a  mud-hole  with  a  dead  cow  lying 
in  it.  Clear,  cold  water  is  necessary  to  my  pleasure,  if 
not  to  my  health.  I  have  lived  on  sheep  water — the 
water  holes  being  tainted  by  sheep — and  alkali  water 
and  soapy  water  of  the  desert,  but  never  happily.  How 
I  hailed  the  clear,  cold,  swiftly-flowing  springs ! 

This  third  camp  lay  in  a  woods  where  the  pines  were 
beautiful  and  the  silence  noticeable.  Upon  asking 
Romer  to  enumerate  the  things  I  had  called  to  his 
attention,  the  few  times  I  could  catch  up  with  him 
on   the  day's  journey,  he   promptly  replied — two   big 


TONTO  BASIN  175 

spiders — tarantulas,  a  hawk,  and  Mormon  Lake.  This 
lake  was  another  snow-melted  mud-hole,  said  to  contain 
fish.  I  doubted  that.  Perhaps  the  little  bull-head  cat- 
fish might  survive  in  such  muddy  water,  but  I  did  not 
believe  bass  or  perch  could. 

One  familiar  feature  of  Arizona  travel  manifested  it- 
self to  me  that  day — the  dry  air.  My  nails  became 
brittle  and  my  lips  began  to  crack.  I  have  had  my  lips 
cracked  so  severely  that  when  I  tried  to  bite  bread  they 
would  split  and  bleed  and  hurt  so  that  I  could  not  eat. 
This  matter  of  sore  lips  was  for  long  a  painful  matter. 
I  tried  many  remedies,  and  finally  found  one,  camphor 
ice,  that  would  prevent  the  drying  and  cracking. 

Next  day  at  dawn  the  forest  was  full  of  the  soughing 
of  wind  in  the  pines — a  wind  that  presaged  storm.  No 
stars  showed.  Romer-boy  piled  out  at  six  o'clock.  I 
had  to  follow  him.  The  sky  was  dark  and  cloudy. 
Only  a  faint  light  showed  in  the  east  and  it  was  just 
light  enough  to  see  when  we  ate  breakfast.  Owing  to 
strayed  horses  we  did  not  get  started  till  after  nine 
o'clock. 

Five  miles  through  the  woods,  gradually  descending, 
led  us  into  an  open  plain  where  there  was  a  grass-bor- 
dered pond  full  of  ducks.  Here  appeared  an  opportunity 
to  get  some  meat.  R.  C.  tried  with  shotgun  and  I  with 
rifle,  all  to  no  avail.  These  ducks  were  shy.  Romer 
seemed  to  evince  some  disdain  at  our  failure,  but  he  did 
not  voice  his  feelings.  We  found  some  wild-turkey 
tracks,  and  a  few  feathers,  which  put  our  hopes  high. 

Crossing  the  open  ground  we  again  entered  the  forest, 
which  gradually  grew  thicker  as  we  got  down  to  a  lower 
altitude.  Oak  trees  began  to  show  in  swales.  And  then 
we  soon  began  to  see  squirrels,  big,  plump,  gray  fellows, 
with  bushy  tails  almost  silver.  They  appeared  wilder 
than  we  would  have  suspected,  at  that  distance  from  the 


176  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

settlements.  Romer  was  eager  to  hunt  them,  and  with 
his  usual  persistence,  succeeded  at  length  in  persuading 
his  uncle  to  do  so. 

To  that  end  we  rode  out  far  ahead  of  the  wagon  and 
horses.  Lee  had  a  yellow  dog  he  called  Pups,  a  close- 
haired,  keen-faced,  muscular  canine  to  which  I  had  taken 
a  dislike.  To  be  fair  to  Pups,  I  had  no  reason  except 
that  he  barked  all  the  time.  Pups  and  his  barking 
were  destined  to  make  me  hail  them  both  with  admira- 
tion and  respect,  but  I  had  no  idea  of  that  then.  Now 
this  dog  of  Lee's  would  run  ahead  of  us,  trail  squirrels, 
chase  them,  and  tree  them,  whereupon  he  would  bark 
vociferously.  Sometimes  up  in  the  bushy  top  we  would 
fail  to  spy  the  squirrel,  but  we  had  no  doubt  one  was 
there.  Romer  wasted  many  and  many  a  cartridge  of 
the  .22  Winchester  trying  to  hit  a  squirrel.  He  had 
practiced  a  good  deal,  and  was  a  fairly  good  shot  for 
a  youngster,  but  hitting  a  little  gray  ball  of  fur  high 
on  a  tree,  or  waving  at  the  tip  of  a  branch,  was  no  easy 
matter. 

"Son,"  I  said,  "you  don't  take  after  your  Dad." 

And  his  uncle  tried  the  lad's  temper  by  teasing  him 
about  Wetzel.  Now  Wetzel,  the  great  Indian  killer  of 
frontier  days,  was  Romer's  favorite  hero. 

"Gimme  the  .20  gauge,"  finally  cried  Romer,  in  des- 
peration, with  his  eyes  flashing. 

Whereupon  his  uncle  handed  him  the  shotgun,  with 
a  word  of  caution  as  to  the  trigger.  This  particular 
squirrel  was  pretty  high  up,  presenting  no  easy  target, 
Romer  stood  almost  directly  under  it,  raised  the  gun 
nearly  straight  up,  waved  and  wobbled  and  hesitated, 
and  finally  fired.  Down  sailed  the  squirrel  to  hit  with 
a  plump.  That  was  Romer's  first  successful  hunting 
experience.  How  proud  he  was  of  that  gray  squirrel! 
I  suffered  a  pang  to  see  the  boy  so  radiant,  so  full  of  fire 


TONTO  BASIN  177 

at  the  killing  of  a  beautiful  creature  of  the  woods.  Then 
again  I  remembered  my  own  first  sensations.  Boys  are 
blood-thirsty  little  savages.  In  their  hunting,  playing, 
even  their  reading,  some  element  of  the  wild  brute  in- 
stinct dominates  them.  They  are  worthy  descendants 
of  progenitors  who  had  to  fight  and  kill  to  live.  This 
incident  furnished  me  much  food  for  reflection.  I  fore- 
saw that  before  this  trip  was  ended  I  must  face  some 
knotty  problems.  I  hated  to  shoot  a  squirrel  even  when 
I  was  hungry.  Probably  that  was  because  I  was  not 
hungry  enough.  A  starving  man  suffers  no  compunc- 
tions at  the  spilling  of  blood.  On  the  contrary  he  revels 
in  it  with  a  fierce,  primitive  joy. 

"Some  shot,  I'll  say!"  declared  Romer  to  his  uncle, 
loftily.  And  he  said  to  me  half  a  dozen  times:  "Say, 
Dad,  wasn't  it  a  grand  peg?" 

But  toward  the  end  of  that  afternoon  his  enthusiasm 
waned  for  shooting,  for  anything,  especially  riding.  He 
kept  asking  when  the  wagon  was  going  to  stop.  Once 
he  yelled  out:  "Here's  a  peach  of  a  place  to  camp." 
Then  I  asked  him:  "Romer,  are  you  tired?"  "Naw! 
But  what's  the  use  ridin'  till  dark?"  At  length  he  had 
to  give  up  and  be  put  on  the  wagon.  The  moment  was 
tragic  for  him.  Soon,  however,  he  brightened  at  some- 
thing Doyle  told  him,  and  began  to  ply  the  old  pioneer 
with  rapid-fire  questions. 

We  pitched  camp  in  an  open  flat,  gray  and  red  with 
short  grass,  and  sheltered  by  towering  pines  on  one  side. 
Under  these  we  set  up  our  tents.  The  mat  of  pine 
needles  was  half  a  foot  thick,  soft  and  springy  and  fra- 
grant. The  woods  appeared  full  of  slanting  rays  of 
golden  sunlight. 

This  day  we  had  supper  over  before  sunset.  Romer 
showed  no  effects  from  his  long,  hard  ride.  First  he 
wanted  to  cook,  then  he  fooled  around  the  fire,  bother- 


178  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

ing  IsbeL  I  had  a  hard  time  to  manage  him.  He 
wanted  to  be  eternally  active.  He  teased  and  begged  to 
go  hunting — then  he  compromised  on  target  practice. 
R.  C.  and  I,  however,  were  too  tired,  and  we  preferred 
to  rest  beside  the  camp-fire. 

"Look  here,  kid,"  said  R.  C,  "save  something  for 
to-morrow." 

In  disgust  Romer  replied:  "Well,  I  suppose  if  a  flock 
of  antelope  came  along  here  you  wouldn't  move.  .  .  . 
You  an'  Dad  are  great  hunters,  I  don't  think!" 

After  the  lad  had  gone  over  to  the  other  men  R.  C. 
turned  to  me  and  said  reflectively:  "Does  he  remind 
you  of  us  when  we  were  little?" 

To  which  I  replied  with  emotion :  "In  him  I  live  over 
again!" 

That  is  one  of  the  beautiful  things  about  children,  so 
full  of  pathos  and  some  strange,  stinging  joy — they  bring 
back  the  days  that  are  no  more. 

This  evening,  despite  my  fatigue,  I  was  the  last  one 
to  stay  up.  My  seat  was  most  comfortable,  consisting 
of  thick  folds  of  blankets  against  a  log.  How  the 
wind  mourned  in  the  trees !  How  the  camp-fire  sparkled, 
glowed  red  and  white!  Sometimes  it  seemed  full  of 
blazing  opals.  Always  it  held  faces.  And  stories — 
more  stories  than  I  can  ever  tell!  Once  I  was  stirred 
and  inspired  by  the  beautiful  effect  of  the  pine  trees  in 
outline  against  the  starry  sky  when  the  camp-fire  blazed 
up.  The  color  of  the  foliage  seemed  indescribably  blue- 
green,  something  never  seen  by  day.  Every  line  shone 
bright,  graceful,  curved,  rounded,  and  all  thrown  with 
sharp  relief  against  the  sky.  How  magical,  exquisitely 
delicate  and  fanciful !  The  great  trunks  were  soft  serrated 
brown,  and  the  gnarled  branches  stood  out  in  perfect 
proportions.     All  works  of  art  must  be  copied  of  nature. 

Next  morning  early,  while  Romer  slept,  and  the  men 


TONTO  BASIN  179 

had  just  begun  to  stir,  I  went  apart  from  the  camp  out 
into  the  woods.  All  seemed  solemn  and  still  and  cool, 
with  the  aisles  of  the  forest  brown  and  green  and  gold. 
I  heard  an  owl,  perhaps  belated  in  his  nocturnal  habit. 
Then  to  my  surprise  I  heard  wild  canaries.  They  were 
flying  high,  and  to  the  south,  going  to  their  winter 
quarters.  I  wandered  around  among  big,  gray  rocks  and 
windfalls  and  clumps  of  young  oak  and  majestic  pines. 
More  than  one  saucy  red  squirrel  chattered  at  me. 

When  I  returned  to  camp  my  comrades  were  at  break- 
fast. Romer  appeared  vastly  relieved  to  see  that  I  had 
not  taken  a  gun  with  me. 

This  morning  we  got  an  early  start.  We  rode  for 
hours  through  a  beautiful  shady  forest,  where  a  fragrant 
breeze  in  our  faces  made  riding  pleasant.  Large  oaks 
and  patches  of  sumach  appeared  on  the  rocky  slopes. 
We  descended  a  good  deal  in  this  morning's  travel,  and 
the  air  grew  appreciably  warmer.  The  smell  of  pine  was 
thick  and  fragrant;  the  sound  of  wind  was  sweet  and 
soughing.  Everywhere  pine  needles  dropped,  shining  in 
the  sunlight  like  thin  slants  of  rain. 

Only  once  or  twice  did  I  see  Romer  in  all  these  morn- 
ing hours;  then  he  was  out  in  front  with  the  cowboy 
Isbel,  riding  his  black  pony  over  all  the  logs  and  washes 
he  could  find.  I  could  see  his  feet  sticking  straight  out 
almost  even  with  his  saddle.  He  did  not  appear  to  need 
stirrups.     My  fears  gradually  lessened. 

During  the  afternoon  the  ride  grew  hot,  and  very 
dusty.  We  came  to  a  long,  open  valley  where  the  dust 
lay  several  inches  deep.  It  had  been  an  unusually  dry 
summer  and  fall — a  fact  that  presaged  poor  luck  for  our 
hunting — and  the  washes  and  stream-beds  were  bleached 
white.  We  came  to  two  water-holes,  tanks  the  Arizo- 
nians  called  them,  and  they  were  vile  mud-holes  with 
green  scum  on  the  water.    The  horses  drank,  but  I  would 


i8o  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

have  had  to  be  far  gone  from  thirst  before  I  would 
have  slaked  mine  there.  We  faced  west  with  the  hot 
sun  beating  on  us  and  the  dust  rising  in  clouds.  No 
wonder  that  ride  was  interminably  long. 

At  last  we  descended  a  canyon,  and  decided  to  camp 
in  a  level  spot  where  several  ravines  met,  in  one  of  which 
a  tiny  stream  of  clear  water  oozed  out  of  the  gravel. 
The  inclosure  was  rocky-sloped,  full  of  caves  and  covered 
with  pines;  and  the  best  I  could  say  for  it  was  that  in 
case  of  storm  the  camp  would  be  well  protected.  We 
shoveled  out  a  deep  hole  in  the  gravel,  so  that  it  would 
fill  up  with  water.  Romer  had  evidently  enjoyed  him- 
self this  day.  When  I  asked  Isbel  about  him  the  cow- 
boy's hard  face  gleamed  with  a  smile:  "Shore  thet 
kid's  all  right.  He'll  make  a  cowpuncher ! "  His  remark 
pleased  me.  In  view  of  Romer's  determination  to  emu- 
late the  worst  bandit  I  ever  wrote  about  I  was  tremen- 
dously glad  to  think  of  him  as  a  cowboy.  But  as  for 
myself  I  was  tired,  and  the  ride  had  been  rather  unprof- 
itable, and  this  camp-site,  to  say  the  least,  did  not 
inspire  me.  It  was  neither  wild  nor  beautiful  nor  com- 
fortable.    I  went  early  to  bed  and  slept  like  a  log. 

The  following  morning  some  of  our  horses  were  lost. 
The  men  hunted  from  daylight  till  ten  o'clock.  Then 
it  was  that  I  learned  more  about  Lee's  dog  Pups.  At 
ten-thirty  Lee  came  in  with  the  lost  horses.  They  had 
hidden  in  a  clump  of  cedars  and  remained  perfectly 
quiet,  as  cute  as  deer.  Lee  put  Pups  on  their  trail. 
Pups  was  a  horse-trailing  dog  and  he  soon  found  them. 
I  had  a  change  of  feeling  for  Pups,  then  and  there. 

The  sun  was  high  and  hot  when  we  rode  off.  The 
pleasant  and  dusty  stretches  alternated.  About  one 
o'clock  we  halted  on  the  edge  of  a  deep  wooded  ravine 
to  take  our  usual  noonday  rest.  I  scouted  along  the 
edge  in  the  hope  of  seeing  game  of  some  kind.     Pres- 


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TONTO  BASIN  181 

ently  I  heard  the  cluck-cluck  of  turkeys.  Slipping 
along  to  an  open  place  I  peered  down  to  be  thrilled  by 
sight  of  four  good-sized  turkeys.  They  were  walking 
along  the  open  strip  of  dry  stream-bed  at  the  bottom 
of  the  ravine.  One  was  chasing  grasshoppers.  They 
were  fairly  close.  I  took  aim  at  one,  and  thought  I 
could  have  hit  him,  but  suddenly  I  remembered  Romer 
and  R.  C.    So  I  slipped  back  and  called  them. 

Hurriedly  and  stealthily  we  returned  to  the  point 
where  I  had  seen  the  turkeys.  Romer  had  a  pale  face 
and  wonderfully  bright  eyes ;  his  actions  resembled  those 
of  a  stalking  Indian.  The  turkeys  were  farther  down, 
but  still  in  plain  sight.  I  told  R.  C.  to  take  the  boy  and 
slip  down,  and  run  and  hide  and  run  till  they  got  close 
enough  for  a  shot.  I  would  keep  to  the  edge  of  the 
ravine. 

Some  moments  later  I  saw  R.  C.  and  the  boy  running 
and  stooping  and  creeping  along  the  bottom  of  the  ravine. 
Then  I  ran  myself  to  reach  a  point  opposite  the  turkeys, 
so  in  case  they  flew  uphill  I  might  get  a  shot.  But  I 
did  not  see  them,  and  nothing  happened.  I  lost  sight 
of  the  turkeys.  Hurrying  back  to  where  I  had  tied  my 
horse  I  mounted  him  and  loped  ahead  and  came  out  upon 
the  ravine  some  distance  above.  Here  I  hunted  around 
for  a  little  while.  Once  I  heard  the  report  of  the  .20 
gauge,  and  then  several  rifle  shots.  Upon  returning  I 
found  that  Lee  and  Nielsen  had  wasted  some  shells. 
R.  C.  and  Romer  came  wagging  up  the  hill,  both  red  and 
wet  and  tired.  R.  C.  carried  a  small  turkey,  about  the 
size  of  a  chicken.  He  told  me,  between  pants,  that  they 
chased  the  four  large  turkeys,  and  were  just  about  to 
get  a  shot  when  up  jumped  a  hen-turkey  with  a  flock 
of  young  ones.  They  ran  every  way.  He  got  one.  Then 
he  told  me,  between  more  pants  and  some  laughs,  that 
Romer  had  chased  the  little  turkeys  all  over  the  ravine, 
13 


182  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

almost  catching  several.  Romer  said  for  himself:  "I 
just  almost  pulled  feathers  out  of  their  tails.  Gee!  if 
I'd  had  a  gun!" 

We  resumed  our  journey.  About  the  middle  of  the 
afternoon  Doyle  called  my  attention  to  an  opening  in 
the  forest  through  which  I  could  see  the  yellow-walled 
rim  of  the  mesa,  and  the  great  blue  void  below.  Arizona ! 
That  explained  the  black  forests,  the  red  and  yellow 
cliffs  of  rock,  the  gray  cedars,  the  heights  and  depths. 

Long  ride  indeed  was  it  down  off  the  mesa.  The  road 
was  winding,  rough  full  of  loose  rocks  and  dusty.  We 
were  all  tired  out  trying  to  keep  up  with  the  wagon. 
Romer,  however,  averred  time  and  again  that  he  was 
not  tired.  Still  I  saw  him  often  shift  his  seat  from  one 
side  of  the  saddle  to  the  other. 

At  last  we  descended  to  a  comparative  level  and  came 
to  a  little  hamlet.  Like  all  Mormon  villages  it  had 
quaint  log  cabins,  low  stone  houses,  an  irrigation  ditch 
running  at  the  side  of  the  road,  orchards,  and  many 
rosy-cheeked  children.  We  lingered  there  long  enough 
to  rest  a  little  and  drink  our  fill  of  the  cold  granite  water. 
I  would  travel  out  of  my  way  to  get  a  drink  of  water  that 
came  from  granite  rock. 

About  five  o'clock  we  left  for  the  Natural  Bridge. 
Romer  invited  or  rather  taunted  me  to  a  race.  When 
it  ended  in  his  victory  I  found  that  I  had  jolted  my 
rifle  out  of  its  saddle  sheath.  I  went  back  some  distance 
to  look  for  it,  but  did  so  in  vain.  Isbel  said  he  would 
ride  back  in  the  morning  and  find  it. 

The  country  here  appeared  to  be  on  a  vast  scale.  But 
that  was  only  because  we  had  gotten  out  where  we  could 
see  all  around.  Arizona  is  all  on  a  grand,  vast  scale. 
Mountain  ranges  stood  up  to  the  south  and  east.  North 
loomed  up  the  lofty,  steep  rim  of  the  Mogollon  Mesa, 
with  its  cliffs  of  yellow  and  red,  and  its  black  line  of 


TONTO  BASIN  183 

timber.  Westward  lay  fold  on  fold  of  low  cedar-covered 
hills.  The  valley  appeared  a  kind  of  magnificent  bowl, 
rough  and  wild,  with  the  distance  lost  in  blue  haze.  The 
vegetation  was  dense  and  rather  low.  I  saw  both 
prickly -pear  and  mescal  cactus,  cedars,  manzanita  brush, 
scrub  oak,  and  juniper  trees.  These  last  named  were 
very  beautiful,  especially  the  smaller  ones,  with  their 
gray-green  foliage,  and  purple  berries,  and  black  and 
white  checkered  bark.  There  were  no  pine  trees.  Since 
we  had  left  the  rim  above  the  character  of  plant  life 
had  changed. 

We  crossed  the  plateau  leading  to  the  valley  where 
the  Natural  Bridge  was  located.  A  winding  road  de- 
scended the  east  side  of  this  valley.  A  rancher  lived 
down  there.  Green  of  alfalfa  and  orchard  and  walnut 
trees  contrasted  vividly  with  a  bare,  gray  slope  on  one 
side,  and  a  red,  rugged  mountain  on  the  other.  A 
deep  gorge  showed  dark  and  wild.  At  length,  just 
after  sunset,  we  reached  the  ranch,  and  rode  through 
orchards  of  peach  and  pear  and  apple  trees,  all  colored 
with  fruit,  and  down  through  grassy  meadow^s  to  a  wal- 
nut grove  where  we  pitched  camp.  By  the  time  we  had 
supper  it  was  dark.  Wonderful  stars,  thick,  dreamy  hum 
of  insects,  murmur  of  swift  water,  a  rosy  and  golden 
afterglow  on  the  notch  of  the  mountain  range  to  the 
west — these  were  inducements  to  stay  up,  but  I  was  so 
tired  I  had  to  go  to  bed,  where  my  eyelids  fell  tight,  as 
if  pleasantly  weighted. 

After  the  long,  hard  rides  and  the  barren  camp-sites 
what  delight  to  awaken  in  this  beautiful  valley  with  the 
morning  cool  and  breezy  and  bright,  with  smell  of  new- 
mown  hay  from  the  green  and  purple  alfalfa  fields,  and 
the  sunlight  gilding  the  jagged  crags  above!  Romer 
made  a  bee-line  for  the  peach  trees.  He  beat  his  daddy 
only  a  few  yards.     The  kind  rancher  had  visited  us  the 


184  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

night  before  and  he  had  told  us  to  help  ourselves  to 
fruit,  melons,  alfalfa.  Needless  to  state  that  I  made 
my  breakfast  on  peaches ! 

I  trailed  the  swift,  murmuring  stream  to  its  source  on 
the  dark  green  slope  where  there  opened  up  a  big  hole 
bordered  by  water-cress,  long  grass,  and  fragrant  mint. 
This  spring  was  one  of  perfectly  clear  water,  six  feet 
deep,  boiling  up  to  bulge  on  the  surface.  A  grass  of 
dark  color  and  bunches  of  light  green  plant  grew  under 
the  surface.  Bees  and  blue  dragon-flies  hummed  around 
and  frogs  as  green  as  the  grass  blinked  with  jewelled  eyes 
from  the  wet  margins.  The  spring  had  a  large  volume 
that  spilled  over  its  borders  with  low,  hollow  gurgle,  with 
fresh,  cool  splash.  The  water  was  soft,  tasting  of  lime- 
stone. Here  was  the  secret  of  the  verdure  and  fragrance 
and  color  and  beauty  and  life  of  the  oasis. 

It  was  also  the  secret  of  the  formation  of  the  wonderful 
Natural  Bridge.  Part  of  the  rancher's  cultivated  land, 
to  the  extent  of  several  acres,  was  the  level  top  of  this 
strange  bridge.  A  meadow  of  alfalfa  and  a  fine  vineyard, 
in  the  air,  like  the  hanging  gardens  of  Babylon!  The 
natural  bridge  spanned  a  deep  gorge,  at  the  bottom  of 
which  flowed  a  swift  stream  of  water.  Geologically  this 
tremendous  arch  of  limestone  cannot  be  so  very  old.  In 
comparatively  recent  times  an  earthquake  or  some  seis- 
mic disturbance  or  some  other  natural  force  caused  a 
spring  of  water  to  burst  from  the  slope  above  the  gorge. 
It  ran  down,  of  course,  over  the  rim.  The  lime  salt  in 
the  water  was  deposited,  and  year  by  year  and  age  by  age 
advanced  toward  the  opposite  side  until  a  bridge  crossed 
the  gorge.  The  swift  stream  at  the  bottom  kept  the 
opening  clear  under  the  bridge. 

A  winding  trail  led  deep  down  on  the  lower  side  of  this 
wonderful  natural  span.  It  showed  the  cliffs  of  lime- 
stone, porous,  craggy,  broken,  chalky.     At  the  bottom 


TONTO  BASIN  185 

the  gorge  was  full  of  tremendous  boulders,  water-worn 
ledges,  s3^camore  and  juniper  trees,  red  and  yellow 
flowers,  and  dark,  beautiful  green  pools.  I  espied  tiny 
gray  frogs,  reminding  me  of  those  I  found  in  the  gulches 
of  the  Grand  Canyon.  Many  huge  black  beetles,  some 
alive,  but  most  of  them  dead,  lined  the  wet  borders  of 
the  pools.  A  species  of  fish  that  resembled  mullet  lay 
in  the  shadow  of  the  rocks. 

From  underneath  the  Natural  Bridge  showed  to  ad- 
vantage, and  if  not  magnificent  lilce  the  grand  Non- 
nezoshe  of  Utah,  it  was  at  least  striking  and  beautiful. 
It  had  a  rounded  ceiling  colored  gray,  yellow,  green, 
bronze,  purple,  white,  making  a  crude  and  scalloped 
mosaic.  Water  dripped  from  it  like  a  rain  of  heavy 
scattered  drops.  The  left  side  was  dryest  and  large,  dark 
caves  opened  up,  one  above  the  other,  the  upper  being 
so  high  that  it  was  dangerous  to  attempt  reaching  it. 
The  right  side  was  slippery  and  wet.  All  rocks  were 
thickly  encrusted  with  lime  salt.  Doyle  told  us  that 
any  object  left  under  the  ceaseless  drip,  drip  of  the  lime 
water  would  soon  become  encrusted,  and  heavy  as  stone. 
The  upper  opening  of  the  arch  was  much  higher  and 
smaller  than  the  lower.  Any  noise  gave  forth  strange 
and  sepulchral  echoes.  Romer  certainly  made  the  welkin 
ring.  A  streak  of  sunlight  shone  through  a  small  hole  in 
the  thinnest  part  of  the  roof.  Doyle  pointed  out  the 
high  cave  where  Indians  had  once  lived,  showing  the 
markings  of  their  fire.  Also  he  told  a  story  of  Apaches 
being  driven  into  the  highest  cave  from  which  they  had 
never  escaped.  This  tale  was  manifestly  to  Romer's 
liking  and  I  had  to  use  force  to  keep  him  from  risking 
his  neck.  A  very  strong  breeze  blew  under  the  arch. 
When  we  rolled  a  boulder  into  the  large,  dark  pool  it  gave 
forth  a  hollow  boom,  boom,  boom,  growing  hollower  the 
deeper  it  went.     I  tried  to  interest  Romer  in  some  bat 


186  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

nests  in  crevices  high  up,  but  the  boy  wanted  to  roll 
stones  and  fish  for  the  mullet.  When  we  climbed  out 
and  were  once  more  on  a  level  I  asked  him  what  he 
thought  of  the  place.  "Some  hole — I'll  say ! "  he  panted, 
breathlessly. 

The  rancher  told  me  that  the  summer  rains  began  there 
about  July,  and  the  snows  about  the  first  of  the  year. 
Snow  never  lay  long  on  the  lower  slopes.  Apaches  had 
lived  there  forty  years  ago  and  had  cultivated  the  soil. 
There  was  gold  in  the  mountains  of  the  Four  Peaks 
Range.  In  this  sheltered  nook  the  weather  was  never 
severely  cold  or  hot ;  and  I  judged  from  the  quaint  talk 
of  the  rancher's  wife  that  life  there  was  always  afternoon. 

Next  day  we  rode  from  Natural  Bridge  to  Payson  in 
four  and  a  half  hours.  Payson  appeared  to  be  an  old 
hamlet,  retaining  many  frontier  characteristics  such  as 
old  board  and  stone  houses  with  high  fronts,  hitching 
posts  and  pumps  on  sidewalks,  and  one  street  so  wide 
that  it  resembled  a  Mexican  plaza.  Payson  contained 
two  stores,  where  I  hoped  to  buy  a  rifle,  and  hoped  in 
vain.  I  had  not  recovered  my  lost  gun,  and  when  night 
came  my  prospects  of  anything  to  hunt  with  appeared 
extremely  slim.  But  we  had  visitors,  and  one  of  them 
was  a  stalwart,  dark-skinned  rider  named  Copple,  who 
introduced  himself  by  saying  he  would  have  come  a  good 
way  to  meet  the  writer  of  certain  books  he  had  profited 
by.  When  he  learned  of  the  loss  of  my  rifle  and  that  I 
could  not  purchase  one  anywhere  he  pressed  upon  me  his 
own.  I  refused  with  thanks,  but  he  would  not  take  no. 
The  upshot  of  it  was  that  he  lent  me  his  .30  Government 
Winchester,  and  gave  me  several  boxes  of  ammunition. 
Also  he  presented  me  with  a  cowhide  lasso.  Whereupon 
Romcr-boy  took  a  shine  to  Copple  at  once.  "Say,  you 
look  like  an  Indian,"  he  declared.  With  a  laugh  Copple 
replied:    "I  am  part  Indian,  sonny."  Manifestly  that 


TONTO  BASIN  187 

settled  his  status  with  Romer,  for  he  piped  up:  "So's 
Dad  part  Indian.     You'd  better  come  huntin'  with  us." 

We  had  for  next  day  to  look  forw^ard  to  the  longest 
and  hardest  ride  of  the  journey  in,  and  in  order  to  make 
it  and  reach  a  good  camping  site  I  got  up  at  three  o'clock 
in  the  morning  to  rout  everybody  out.  It  was  pitch  dark 
until  we  kindled  fires.  Then  everybody  rustled  to  such 
purpose  that  we  were  ready  to  start  before  dawn,  and 
had  to  wait  a  little  for  light  enough  to  see  where  we  were 
going.  This  procedure  tickled  Romer  immensely.  I 
believed  he  imagined  he  was  in  a  pioneer  caravan.  The 
gray  breaking  of  dawn,  the  coming  of  brighter  light,  the 
rose  and  silver  of  the  rising  sun,  and  the  riding  in  its 
face,  with  the  air  so  tangy  and  nipping,  were  circum- 
stances that  inspired  me  as  the  adventurous  start  pleased 
Romer.  The  brush  and  cactus-lined  road  was  rough, 
up  hill  and  down,  with  ever  increasing  indications  that  it 
was  seldom  used.  From  the  tops  of  high  points  I  could 
see  black  foothills,  round,  cone-shaped,  flat-topped,  all 
leading  the  gaze  toward  the  great  yellow  and  red  wall 
of  the  mesa,  with  its  fringed  borderline,  wild  and  beckon- 
ing. 

We  walked  our  horses,  trotted,  loped,  and  repeated 
the  order,  over  and  over,  hour  by  hour,  mile  after  mile, 
under  a  sun  that  burned  our  faces  and  through  choking 
dust.  The  washes  and  stream-beds  were  bleached  and 
dry ;  the  brush  was  sear  and  yellow  and  dust  laden ;  the 
mescal  stalks  seemed  withered  by  hot  blasts.  Only 
the  manzanita  looked  fresh.  That  smooth  red-branched 
and  glistening  green-leafed  plant  of  the  desert  apparently 
flourished  without  rain.  On  all  sides  the  evidences  of 
extreme  drought  proved  the  year  to  be  the  dreaded  anno 
seco  of  the  Mexicans. 

For  ten  hours  we  rode  without  a  halt  before  there 
was  any  prominent  change  in  the  weary  up-  and  down- 


i88  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

hill  going,  in  the  heat  and  dust  and  brush-walled  road. 
But  about  the  middle  of  the  afternoon  we  reached  the 
summit  of  the  longest  hill,  from  which  we  saw  ahead 
of  us  a  cut  up  country,  wild  and  rugged  and  beautiful, 
with  pine-sloped  canyon  at  our  feet.  We  heard  the 
faint  murmur  of  running  water.  Hot,  dusty,  wet  with 
sweat,  and  thirsty  as  sheep,  we  piled  down  that  steep 
slope  as  fast  as  we  dared.  Our  horses  did  not  need 
urging.  At  the  bottom  we  plunged  into  a  swift  stream 
of  clear,  cold  water — granite  water — to  drink  of  which, 
and  to  bathe  hot  heads  and  burning  feet,  was  a  joy 
only  known  to  the  weary  traveler  of  the  desert.  Romer 
yelled  that  the  water  was  lilve  that  at  our  home  in  the 
mountains  of  Pennsylvania,  and  he  drank  till  I  thought 
he  would  burst,  and  then  I  had  to  hold  him  to  keep  him 
from  wallowing  in  it. 

Here  we  entered  a  pine  forest.  Heat  and  dust  stayed 
with  us,  and  the  aches  and  pains  likewise,  but  the  worst 
of  them  lay  behind.  Every  mile  grew  shadier,  clearer, 
cooler. 

Nielsen  happened  to  fall  in  and  ride  beside  me  for 
several  miles,  as  was  often  his  wont.  The  drink  of 
water  stirred  him  to  an  Homeric  recital  of  one  of  his 
desert  trips  in  Sonora,  at  the  end  of  which,  almost 
dead  of  thirst,  he  had  suddenly  come  upon  such  a  stream 
as  the  one  we  had  just  passed.  Then  he  told  me  about 
his  trips  down  the  west  coast  of  Sonora,  along  the 
Gulf,  where  he  traveled  at  night,  at  low  tide,  so  that  by 
daytime  his  footprints  would  be  washed  out.  This 
was  the  land  of  the  Seri  Indians.  Undoubtedly  these 
Indians  were  cannibals.  I  had  read  considerable  about 
them,  much  of  which  ridiculed  the  rumors  of  their 
cannibalistic  traits.  This  of  course  had  been  of  exceed- 
ing interest  to  me,  because  some  day  I  meant  to  go  to 
the  land  of  the  Seris.     But  not  until  1918  did  I  get 


TONTO  BASIN  189 

really  authentic  data  concerning  them.  Professor  Bailey 
of  the  University  of  California  told  me  he  had  years 
before  made  two  trips  to  the  Gulf,  and  found  the  Seris 
to  be  the  lowest  order  of  savages  he  knew  of.  He  was 
positive  that  under  favorable  circumstances  they  would 
practice  cannibalism.  Nielsen  made  four  trips  down 
there.  He  claimed  the  Seris  were  an  ugly  tribe.  In 
winter  they  lived  on  Tiburon  Island,  off  which  boats 
anchored  on  occasions,  and  crews  and  fishermen  and 
adventurers  went  ashore  to  barter  with  the  Indians. 
These  travelers  did  not  see  the  worst  of  the  Seris.  In 
summer  they  range  up  the  mainland,  and  they  go 
naked.  They  do  not  want  gold  discovered  down  there. 
They  will  fight  prospectors.  They  use  arrows  and 
attack  at  dawn.    Also  they  poison  the  water-holes. 

Nielsen  told  of  some  men  who  were  massacred  by 
Seris  on  the  mainland  opposite  Tiburon  Island.  One 
man,  who  had  gone  away  from  camp,  returned  to  hear 
the  attack  upon  his  companions.  He  escaped  and  made 
his  way  to  Gyamus.  Procuring  assistance  this  man 
returned  to  the  scene  of  the  massacre,  only  to  find 
stakes  in  the  sand,  with  deep  trails  tramped  around 
them,  and  blackened  remains  of  fires,  and  bones  every- 
where. Nielsen  went  on  to  say  that  once  from  a  hid- 
ing place  he  had  watched  Seris  tear  up  and  devour  a 
dead  turtle  that  he  afterward  ascertained  was  putrid. 
He  said  these  Seris  were  the  greatest  runners  of  all 
desert  savages.  The  best  of  them  could  outrun  a  horse. 
One  Seri,  a  giant  seven  feet  tall,  could  outrun  a  deer 
and  break  its  neck  with  his  hands. 

These  statements  of  Nielsen's  were  remarkable,  and 
personally  I  believed  them.  Men  of  his  stamp  were 
honest  and  they  had  opportunities  to  learn  strange  and 
terrible  facts  in  nature.  The  great  naturalist  Darwin 
made  rather  stronger  claims  for  the  barbarism  of  the 


I90  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

savages  of  Terra  del  Fuego.  Nielsen,  pursuing  his 
theme,  told  me  how  he  had  seen,  with  his  own  eyes — 
and  they  were  certainly  sharp  and  intelligent — Yaqui 
Indians  leap  on  the  bare  backs  of  wild  horses  and  lock- 
ing their  legs,  stick  there  in  spite  of  the  mad  plunges 
and  pitches.  The  Gauchos  of  the  Patagonian  Pampas 
were  famous  for  that  feat  of  horsemanship.  I  asked  Joe 
Isbel  what  he  thought  of  such  riding.  And  he  said: 
"Wal,  I  can  ride  a  wild  steer  bare-back,  but  excoose 
me  from  tacklin'  a  buckin'  bronch  without  saddle  an' 
stirrups."  This  coming  from  the  acknowledged  cham- 
pion horseman  of  the  southwest  was  assuredly  significant. 
At  five  o'clock  we  came  to  the  end  of  the  road.  It 
led  to  a  forest  glade,  overlooking  the  stream  we  had 
followed,  and  that  was  as  far  as  our  wagon  could  go. 
The  glade  shone  red  with  sumach,  and  surrounded  by 
tall  pines,  with  a  rocky  and  shady  glen  below,  it  appeared 
a  delightful  place  to  camp.  As  I  was  about  to  unsaddle 
my  horses  I  heard  the  cluck-cluck  of  turkeys.  Pulling 
out  my  borrowed  rifle,  and  calling  Romer,  I  ran  to  the 
edge  of  the  glade.  The  shady,  swift  stream  ran  fifty 
feet  or  so  below  me.  Across  it  I  saw  into  the  woods 
where  shade  and  gray  rocks  and  colored  brush  mingled. 
Again  I  heard  the  turkeys  cluck.  "Look  hard,  son," 
I  whispered.  "They're  close."  R.  C.  came  slipping 
along  below  us,  with  his  rifle  ready.  Suddenly  Romer 
stiffened,  then  pointed.  "There!  Dad!— There!"  I 
saw  two  gobblers  wade  into  the  brook  not  more  than  a 
hundred  and  fifty  feet  away.  Drawing  down  with  fine 
aim  I  fired.  The  bullet  splashed  water  all  over  the 
turkeys.  One  with  loud  whirr  of  wings  flew  away. 
The  other  leaped  across  the  brook  and  ran — swift  as 
a  deer — right  up  the  slope.  As  I  tried  to  get  the  sight 
on  him  I  heard  other  turkeys  fly,  and  the  crack-crack 
of  R.  C.'s  gun.     I  shot  twice  at  my  running  turkey, 


TONTO  BASIN  191 

and  all  I  did  was  to  scatter  the  dirt  over  him,  and  make 
him  run  faster.  R.  C.  had  not  done  any  better  shoot- 
ing. Romer,  wonderful  to  relate,  was  so  excited  that  he 
forgot  to  make  fun  of  our  marksmanship.  We  scouted 
around  some,  but  the  turkeys  had  gone.  By  promising 
to  take  Romer  hunting  after  supper  I  contrived  to  get 
him  back  to  the  glade,  where  we  made  camp. 

II 

After  we  had  unpacked  and  while  the  men  were  pitch- 
ing the  tents  and  getting  supper  I  took  Romer  on  a 
hunt  up  the  creek.  I  was  considerably  pleased  to  see 
good-sized  trout  in  the  deeper  pools.  A  little  way 
above  camp  the  creek  forked.  As  the  right-hand  branch 
appeared  to  be  larger  and  more  attractive  we  followed 
its  course.  Soon  the  bustle  of  camp  life  and  the  sound 
of  the  horses  were  left  far  behind,  Romer  slipped  along 
beside  me  stealthily  as  an  Indian,  all  eyes  and  ears. 

We  had  not  traveled  thus  for  a  quarter  of  a  mile 
when  my  quick  ear  caught  the  cluck-cluck  of  turkeys. 
"Listen,"  I  whispered,  halting.  Romer  became  like  a 
statue,  his  dark  eyes  dilating,  his  nostrils  quivering, 
his  whole  body  strung.  He  was  a  Zane  all  right.  A 
turkey  called  again;  then  another  answered.  Romer 
started,  and  nodded  his  head  vehemently. 

"Come  on  now,  right  behind  me,"  I  whispered. 
"Step  where  I  step  and  do  what  I  do.  Don't  break 
any  twigs." 

Cautiously  we  glided  up  the  creek,  listening  now  and 
then  to  get  the  direction,  until  we  came  to  an  open 
place  where  we  could  see  some  distance  up  a  ridge. 
The  turkey  clucks  came  from  across  the  creek  some- 
where up  this  open  aisle  of  the  forest.  I  crawled  ahead 
several   rods    to    a    more    advantageous    point,    much 


192  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

pleased  to  note  that  Romer  kept  noiselessly  at  my 
heels.  Then  from  behind  a  stone  we  peeped  out. 
Almost  at  once  a  turkey  flew  down  from  a  tree  into  the 
open  lane,  "Look  Dad!"  whispered  Romer,  wildly. 
I  had  to  hold  him  down.  "That's  a  hen  turkey,"  I  said. 
"See,  it's  small  and  dull-colored.  The  gobblers  are 
big,   shiny,   and  they  have  red  on  their  heads." 

Another  hen  turkey  flew  down  from  a  rather  low 
height.  Then  I  made  out  grapevines,  and  I  saw  several 
animated  dark  patches  among  them.  As  I  looked  three 
turkeys  flopped  down  to  the  ground.  One  was  a  gob- 
bler of  considerable  size,  with  beautiful  white  and 
bronze  feathers.  Rather  suspiciouvsly  he  looked  down 
our  way.  The  distance  was  not  more  than  a  hundred 
yards.  I  aimed  at  him,  feeling  as  I  did  so  how  Romer 
quivered  beside  me,  but  I  had  no  confidence  in  Copple's 
rifle.  The  sights  were  wrong  for  me.  The  stock  did 
not  fit  me.  So,  hoping  for  a  closer  and  better  shot,  I 
let  this  opportunity  pass.  Of  course  I  should  have  taken 
it.  The  gobbler  clucked  and  began  to  trot  up  the  ridge, 
with  the  others  after  him.  They  were  not  frightened, 
but  they  appeared  rather  suspicious.  When  they  dis- 
appeared in  the  woods  Romer  and  I  got  up,  and  hur- 
ried in  pursuit.  "Gee!  why  didn't  you  peg  that  gob- 
bler?" broke  out  Romer,  breathlessly.  "Wasn't  he  a 
peach?" 

When  we  reached  the  top  of  the  ridge  we  advanced 
very  cautiously  again.  Another  open  place  led  to  a 
steep,  rocky  hillside  with  cedars  and  pines  growing  some- 
what separated.  I  was  disappointed  in  not  seeing  the 
turkeys.  Then  in  our  anxiety  and  eagerness  we  hurried 
on,  not  noiselessly  by  any  means.  All  of  a  sudden 
there  was  a  rustle,  and  then  a  great  whirr  of  wings. 
Three  turkeys  flew  like  grouse  away  into  the  woods. 
Next  I  saw  the  white  gobbler  running  up  the  rocky 


TONTO  BASIN  193 

hillside.  At  first  he  was  in  the  open.  Aiming  as  best 
I  could  I  waited  for  him  to  stop  or  hesitate.  But  he 
did  neither.  "Peg  him,  Dad!"  yelled  Romer.  The  lad 
was  right.  My  best  chance  I  had  again  forfeited.  To 
hit  a  running  wild  turkey  with  a  rifle  bullet  was  a  feat 
I  had  not  done  so  often  as  to  inspire  conceit.  The 
gobbler  was  wise,  too.  For  that  matter  all  grown  gob- 
blers are  as  wise  as  old  bucks,  except  in  the  spring 
mating  season,  when  it  is  a  crime  to  hunt  them.  This 
one,  just  as  I  got  a  bead  on  him,  always  ran  behind  a 
rock  or  tree  or  shrub.  Finally  in  desperation  I  took 
a  snap  shot  at  him,  hitting  under  him,  making  him 
jump.  Then  in  rapid  succession  I  fired  four  more  times. 
I  had  the  satisfaction  of  seeing  where  my  bullets  struck 
up  the  dust,  even  though  they  did  go  wide  of  the  mark. 
After  my  last  shot  the  gobbler  disappeared. 

"Well,  Dad,  you  sure  throwed  the  dirt  over  him!" 
declared  Romer. 

"Son,  I  don't  believe  I  could  hit  a  flock  of  barns  with 
this  gun,"  I  replied,  gazing  doubtfully  at  the  old,  shiny, 
wire-wrapped,  worn-out  Winchester  Copple  had  lent  me. 
I  had  been  told  that  he  was  a  fine  marksman  and  could 
drive  a  nail  with  it.  Upon  my  return  to  camp  I  tried 
out  the  rifle,  carefully,  with  a  rest,  to  find  that  it  was 
not  accurate.  Moreover  it  did  not  throw  the  bullets 
consistently.  It  shot  high,  wide,  low;  and  right  there 
I  abandoned  any  further  use  for  it.  R.  C.  tried  to  make 
me  take  his  rifle  to  use  on  the  hunting  trip ;  Nielsen  and 
Lee  wanted  me  to  take  theirs,  but  I  was  disgusted  with 
myself  and  refused.  "Thanks,  boys,"  I  said.  "Maybe 
this  will  be  a  lesson  to  me." 

We  had  been  up  since  three  o'clock  that  morning, 
and  the  day's  travel  had  been  exhausting.  I  had  just 
enough  energy  left  to  scrape  up  a  huge,  soft  pile  of  pine 
needles  upon  which  to  make  our  bed.     After  that  all 


194  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

was  oblivion  until  I  was  awakened  by  the  ringing 
strokes  of  Nielsen's  axe. 

The  morning,  after  the  sun  got  up,  was  exceedingly- 
delightful.  And  this  camp  was  such  a  contrast  to  the 
others,  so  pleasant  and  attractive,  that  even  if  we  had 
not  arranged  to  meet  Lee  Haught  and  his  sons  here  I 
would  have  stayed  a  while  anyway.  Haught  was  a 
famed  bear  hunter  who  lived  in  a  log-cabin  somewhere 
up  under  the  rim  of  the  mesa.  While  Lee  and  Nielsen 
rode  off  up  the  trail  to  find  Haught  I  gave  Romer  his 
first  try  at  rainbow  trout.  The  water  of  the  creek  was 
low  and  clear,  so  that  we  could  see  plenty  of  good- 
sized  trout.  But  they  were  shy.  They  would  not  rise 
readily  to  any  of  our  flies,  though  I  got  several  strilces. 
We  searched  under  the  stones  for  worms  and  secured 
a  few.  Whereupon  Romer  threw  a  baited  hook  to  a 
trout  we  plainly  saw.  The  trout  gobbled  it.  Romer 
had  been  instructed  in  the  fine  art  of  angling,  but  when- 
ever he  got  a  bite  he  always  forgot  science.  He  yanked 
this  ten-inch  rainbow  right  out.  Then  in  another  pool 
he  hooked  a  big  fellow  that  had  ideas  of  his  own  as  well 
as  weight  and  strength.  Romer  applied  the  same 
strenuous  tactics.  But  this  trout  nearly  pulled  Romer 
off  the  rock  before  the  line  broke.  I  took  occasion  then 
to  deliver  to  the  lad  a  lecture.  In  reply  he  said  tear- 
fully: "I  didn't  know  he  was  so — so  big." 

When  we  returned  to  camp,  Haught  and  his  sons  were 
there.  Even  at  a  distance  their  horses,  weapons,  and 
persons  satisfied  my  critical  eye.  Lee  Haught  was  a  tall, 
spare,  superbly  built  man,  with  square  shoulders.  He 
had  a  brown  face  with  deep  lines  and  sunken  cheeks, 
keen  hazel  eyes,  heavy  dark  mustache,  and  hair  streaked 
a  little  with  gray.  The  only  stril<:ing  features  of  his 
apparel  were  his  black  sombrero  and  long  spurs. 

His  sons,  Edd  and  George,  were  young,  lean,  sallow, 


TONTO  BASIN  19S 

still-faced,  lanky-legged  horsemen  with  clear  gray  eyes. 
They  did  not  appear  to  be  given  to  much  speech.  Both 
were  then  waiting  for  the  call  of  the  army  draft.  Look- 
ing at  them  then,  feeling  the  tranquil  reserve  and  latent 
force  of  these  Arizonians,  I  reflected  that  the  Germans 
had  failed  in  their  psychology  of  American  character. 
A  few  hundred  thousand  Americans  like  the  Haught 
boys  would  have  whipped  the  German  army. 

We  held  a  council.  Haught  said  he  would  send  his 
son  Edd  with  Doyle,  and  by  a  long  roundabout  forest 
road  get  the  v.-agon  up  on  the  mesa.  "With  his  burros 
and  some  of  our  horses  packed  we  could  take  part  of 
the  outfit  up  the  creek  trail,  past  his  cabin,  and  climb 
out  on  the  rim,  where  we  would  find  grass,  water,  wood, 
and  plenty  of  game. 

The  idea  of  permanent  camp  before  sunset  that  very 
day  inspired  us  to  united  and  vigorous  effort.  By  noon 
we  had  the  pack  train  ready.  Edd  and  Do3de  climbed 
on  the  wagon  to  start  the  other  way.  Romer  waved 
his  hand:  "Good-bye,  Mr.  Doyle,  don't  break  down 
and  lose  the  apples!" 

Then  we  were  off,  up  the  narrow  trail  along  the  creek. 
Haught  led  the  way.  Romer  attached  himself  to  the 
bear-hunter,  and  Vv^herever  the  trail  was  wide  enough 
rode  beside  him.  R.  C.  and  I  followed.  The  other  men 
fell  in  behind  the  pack  train. 

The  ride  was  hot,  and  for  the  most  part  all  up  hill. 
That  basin  could  be  likened  to  the  ribs  of  a  washboard : 
it  was  all  hills,  gorges,  ridges  and  ravines.  The  hollows 
of  this  exceedingly  rough  country  were  thick  with  pine 
and  oak,  the  ridges  covered  with  cedar,  juniper,  and 
manzanita.  The  ground,  where  it  was  not  roclcy,  was 
a  dry,  red  clay.  We  passed  Haught's  log  cabin  and 
clearing  of  a  few  acres,  where  I  saw  fat  hogs  and  cattle. 
Beyond  this  point   the  trail  grew  more   zigzag,   and 


196  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

steeper,  and  shadier.  As  we  got  higher  up  the  air  grew 
cooler.  I  noted  a  change  in  the  timber.  The  trees 
grew  larger,  and  other  varieties  appeared.  We  crossed 
a  roaring  brook  lined  by  thick,  green  brush,  very  pleasant 
to  the  eye,  and  bronze-gold  ferns  that  were  beautiful. 
We  passed  oaks  all  green  and  yellov/,  and  maple  trees, 
wonderfully  colored  red  and  cerise.  Then  still  higher 
up  I  espied  some  silver  spruces,  most  exquisite  trees  of 
the  mountain  forests. 

During  the  latter  half  of  the  climb  up  to  the  rim  I 
had  to  attend  to  the  business  of  riding  and  walking. 
The  trail  was  rough,  steep,  and  long.  Once  Haught 
called  my  attention  to  a  flat  stone  with  a  plain  trail 
made  by  a  turtle  in  ages  past  when  that  sandstone  was 
wet,  sedimentary  deposit.  By  and  bye  we  reached  the 
last  slopes  up  to  the  mesa,  green,  with  yellow  crags  and 
cliffs,  and  here  and  there  blazing  maples  to  remind  me 
again  that  autumn  was  at  hand. 

At  last  we  surmounted  the  rim,  from  which  I  saw  a 
scene  that  defied  words.  It  was  different  from  any  I 
had  seen  before.  Black  timber  as  far  as  eye  could  see! 
Then  I  saw  a  vast  bowl  inclosed  by  dim  mountain 
ranges,  with  a  rolling  floor  of  forested  ridges,  and  dark 
lines  I  knew  to  be  canyons.  For  wild,  rugged  beauty 
I  had  not  seen  its  equal. 

When  the  pack  train  reached  the  rim  we  rode  on, 
and  now  through  a  magnificent  forest  at  eight  thou- 
sand feet  altitude.  Big  white  and  black  clouds  ob- 
scured the  sun.  A  thunder  shower  caught  us.  There 
was  hail,  and  the  dry  smell  pf  dust,  and  a  little  cold 
rain.  Romer  would  not  put  on  his  slicker.  Haught 
said  the  drought  had  been  the  worst  he  had  seen  in 
twenty  years  there.  Up  in  this  odorous  forestland  I 
could  not  see  where  there  had  been  lack  of  rain.  The 
forest  appeared  thick,  grassy,  gold  and  yellow  and  green 


LISTENINC;    1  IJR     lllli    UULNUS 


TONTO  BASIN  197 

and  brown.  Thickets  and  swales  of  oaks  and  aspens 
were  gorgeous  in  their  autumn  hues.  The  silver  spruces 
sent  down  long,  graceful  branches  that  had  to  be  brushed 
aside  or  stooped  under  as  we  rode  along.  Big  gray 
squirrels  with  white  tails  and  tufted  ears  ran  up  trees 
to  perch  on  limbs  and  watch  us  go  by ;  and  other  squir- 
rels, much  smaller  and  darker  gray,  frisked  and  chat- 
tered and  scolded  at  a  great  rate. 

We  passed  little  depressions  that  ran  down  into 
ravines,  and  these,  Haught  informed  me,  were  the  heads 
of  canyons  that  sloped  away  from  the  rim,  deepening 
and  widening  for  miles.  The  rim  of  the  mesa  was  its 
highest  point,  except  here  and  there  a  few  elevations 
like  Black  Butte.  Geologically  this  mesa  was  an  enor- 
mous fault,  like  the  north  rim  of  the  Grand  Canyon. 
During  the  formation  of  the  earth,  or  the  hardening  of 
the  crust,  there  had  been  a  crack  or  slip,  so  that  one 
edge  of  the  crust  stood  up  sheer  above  the  other.  We 
passed  the  heads  of  Leonard  Canyon,  Gentry,  and 
Turkey  Canyons,  and  at  last,  near  time  of  sunset, 
headed  down  into  beautifully  colored,  pine-sloped,  aspen- 
thicketed  Beaver  Dam  Canyon. 

A  mile  from  the  rim  we  were  deep  in  the  canyon, 
walled  in  by  rock-strewn  and  pine-timbered  slopes  too 
steep  for  a  horse  to  climb.  There  was  a  little  gully  on 
the  black  soil  where  there  were  no  evidences  of  recent 
water.  Haught  said  he  had  never  seen  Beaver  Dam 
Creek  dry  until  this  season.  We  traveled  on  until  we 
came  to  a  wide,  open  space,  where  three  forks  of  this 
canyon  met,  and  where  in  the  middle  of  this  glade  there 
rose  a  lengthy  wooded  bench,  shaded  and  beautified  by 
stately  pines  and  silver  spruce.  At  this  point  water 
appeared  in  the  creek  bed,  flowing  in  tiny  stream  that 
soon  gathered  volume.  Cold  and  clear  and  pure  it  was 
all  that  was  needed  to  make  this  spot  an  ideal  camp 

14 


198  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

site.  Haught  said  half  a  mile  below  there  was  a  grassy 
park  where  the  horses  would  graze  with  elk. 

We  pitched  our  tents  on  this  bench,  and  I  chose  for 
my  location  a  space  between  two  great  monarchs  of  the 
forests,  that  had  surely  shaded  many  an  Indian  en- 
campment. At  the  upper  end  of  the  bench  rose  a  knoll, 
golden  and  green  with  scrub  oaks,  and  russet-colored 
with  its  lichened  rocks.  About  all  we  could  manage 
that  evening  was  to  eat  and  go  to  bed. 

Morning  broke  cool  and  bright,  with  heavy  dew.  I 
got  my  boots  as  wet  as  if  I  had  waded  in  water.  This 
surprised  me,  occurring  on  October  sixth,  and  at  eight 
thousand  feet  altitude,  as  I  had  expected  frost.  Most 
of  this  day  was  spent  in  making  camp,  unpacking,  and 
attending  to  the  many  necessary  little  details  that  make 
for  comfort  in  the  open.  To  be  sure  Romer  worked 
very  spasmodically.  He  spent  most  of  his  time  on  the 
back  of  one  of  Haught's  burros,  chasing  and  roping 
another.  I  had  not  remembered  seeing  the  lad  so 
happily  occupied. 

Late  in  the  afternoon  I  slipped  off  down  the  canyon 
alone,  taking  Haught's  rifle  for  safety  rather  than  a 
desire  to  kill  anything.  By  no  means  was  it  impossible 
to  meet  a  bad  bear  in  that  forest.  Some  distance  below 
camp  I  entered  a  ravine  and  climbed  up  to  the  level, 
and  soon  found  myself  deep  in  the  fragrant,  colorful, 
wild  forest.  Like  coming  home  again  was  it  to  enter 
that  forest  of  silver-tipped,  level-spreading  spruce,  and 
great,  gnarled,  massive  pines,  and  oak-patches  of  green 
and  gold,  and  maple  thickets,  with  shining  aspens 
standing  white  against  the  blaze  of  red  and  purple. 
High,  wavy,  bleached  grass,  brown  mats  of  pine  needles, 
gray-green  moss  waving  from  the  spruces,  long  strands 
of  sunlight — all  these  seemed  to  welcome  me. 

At  a  distance  there  was  a  roar  of  wind  through  the 


TONTO  BASIN  199 

forest;  close  at  hand  only  a  soft  breeze.  Rustling  of 
twigs  caused  me  to  compose  myself  to  listen  and  watch. 
Soon  small  gray  squirrels  came  into  view  all  around 
me,  bright-eyed  and  saucy,  very  curious  about  this  in- 
truder. They  began  to  chatter.  Other  squirrels  were 
working  in  the  tops  of  trees,  for  I  heard  the  fall  of 
pine  cones.  Then  came  the  screech  of  blue  jays.  Soon 
they  too  discovered  me.  The  male  birds  were  superb, 
dignified,  beautiful.  The  color  was  light  blue  all  over 
with  dark  blue  head  and  tufted  crest.  By  and  bye  they 
ceased  to  scold  me,  and  I  was  left  to  listen  to  the  wind, 
and  to  the  tiny  patter  of  dropping  seeds  and  needles 
from  the  spruces.  What  cool,  sweet,  fresh  smell  this 
woody,  leafy,  earthy,  dry,  grassy,  odorous  fragrance, 
dominated  by  scent  of  pine!  How  lonesome  and  rest- 
ful !  I  felt  a  sense  of  deep  peace  and  rest.  This  golden- 
green  forest,  barred  with  sunlight,  canopied  by  the  blue 
sky,  and  melodious  with  its  soughing  moan  of  wind, 
absolutely  filled  me  with  content  and  happiness.  If  a 
stag  or  a  bear  had  trotted  out  into  my  sight,  and  had 
showed  me  no  animosity,  not  improbably  I  would  have 
forgotten  my  gun.  More  and  more  as  I  lived  in  the 
open  I  grew  reluctant  to  kill. 

Presently  a  porcupine  waddled  along  some  rods  away, 
and  unaware  of  my  presence  it  passed  by  and  climbed 
a  spruce.  I  saw  it  climb  high  and  finally  lost  sight  of  it. 
In  searching  up  and  down  this  spruce  I  grew  alive  to 
what  a  splendid  and  beautiful  tree  it  was.  Where  so 
many  trees  grew  it  always  seemed  difficult  to  single 
out  one  and  study  it.  This  silver  spruce  was  five  feet 
through  at  the  base,  rugged,  gray-seamed,  thick  all  the 
way  to  its  lofty  height.  Its  branches  were  small,  with  a 
singular  feature  that  they  were  uniform  in  shape,  length, 
and  droop.  Most  all  spruce  branches  drooped  toward 
the   ground.      That   explained   why   they   made   such 


2CX)  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

excellent  shelters  from  rain.  After  a  hard  storm  I  had 
seen  the  ground  dry  under  a  thick-foliaged  spruce. 
Many  a  time  had  I  made  a  bed  under  one.  Elk  and  deer 
stand  under  a  spruce  during  a  rain,  unless  there  is 
thunder  and  lightning.  In  forests  of  high  altitude, 
where  lightning  strikes  many  trees,  I  have  never  found 
or  heard  of  elk  and  deer  being  killed.  This  particular 
spruce  was  a  natural  tent  in  the  forest.  The  thick- 
spreading  graceful  silver  plumes  extended  clear  to  the 
top,  where  they  were  bushiest,  and  rounded  out,  with 
all  the  largest  branches  there.  Each  dark  gray  branch 
was  fringed  and  festooned  with  pale  green  moss,  like 
the  cypresses  of  the  South. 

Suddenly  I  heard  a  sharp  snapping  of  twigs  and  then 
stealthy,  light  steps.  An  animal  of  some  species  was 
moving  in  the  thicket  nearby.  Naturally  I  sustained  a 
thrill,  and  bethought  me  of  the  rifle.  Then  I  peered 
keenly  into  the  red  rose  shadows  of  the  thicket.  The 
sun  was  setting  now,  and  though  there  appeared  a  clear 
golden  light  high  in  the  forest,  along  the  ground  there 
were  shadows.  I  heard  leaves  falling,  rustling.  Tall 
white  aspens  stood  out  of  the  thicket,  and  two  of  the 
large  ones  bore  the  old  black  scars  of  bear  claws.  I  was 
sure,  however,  that  no  bear  hid  in  the  thicket  at  this 
moment.  Presently  whatever  the  animal  was  it  pat- 
tered lightly  away  on  the  far  side.  After  that  I  watched 
the  quiver  of  the  aspen  leaves.  Some  were  green,  some 
yellow,  some  gold,  but  they  all  had  the  same  wonder- 
ful tremor,  the  sUent  fluttering  that  gave  them  the  most 
exquisite  action  in  nature.  The  sun  set,  the  forest  dark- 
ened, reminding  me  of  supper  time.  So  I  returned  to 
camp.  As  I  entered  the  open  canyon  Romer-boy  espied 
me — manifestly  he  had  been  watching — and  he  yelled: 
"Here  comes  my  Daddy  now!  .  .  .  Say,  Dad,  did  you 
get  any  pegs?" 


TONTO  BASIN  201 

Next  morning  Hauglit  asked  me  if  I  would  like  to 
ride  around  through  the  woods  and  probably  get  a  shot 
at  a  deer.  Romer  coaxed  so  to  go  that  I  finally  con- 
sented. 

We  rode  down  the  canyon,  and  presently  came  to  a 
wide  grassy  park  inclosed  by  high  green-clad  slopes,  the 
features  of  which  appeared  to  be  that  the  timber  on  the 
west  slope  was  mostly  pine,  and  on  the  east  slope  it 
was  mostly  spruce.  I  could  arrive  at  no  certain  reason 
for  this,  but  I  thought  it  must  be  owing  to  the  snow 
lying  somewhat  longer  on  the  east  slope.  The  stream 
here  was  running  with  quite  a  little  volume  of  water. 
Our  horses  were  grazing  in  this  park.  I  saw  fresh  elk 
tracks  made  the  day  before.  Elk  were  quite  abundant 
through  this  forest,  Haught  informed  me,  and  were 
protected  by  law. 

A  couple  of  miles  down  this  trail  the  canyon  narrowed, 
losing  its  park-like  dimensions.  The  farther  we  traveled 
the  more  water  there  was  in  the  stream,  and  more  elk, 
deer,  and  turkey  tracks  in  the  sand.  Every  half  mile  or 
so  we  would  come  to  the  mouth  of  a  small  intersecting 
canyon,  and  at  length  we  rode  up  one  of  these,  pres- 
ently to  climb  out  on  top.  At  this  distance  from  the 
rim  the  forest  was  more  open  than  in  the  vicinity  of 
our  camp,  affording  better  riding  and  hunting.  Still 
the  thickets  of  aspen  and  young  pine  were  so  frequent 
that  seldom  could  I  see  ahead  more  than  several  hun- 
dred yards. 

Haught  led  the  way,  I  rode  next  and  Romer  kept 
beside  me  where  it  was  possible  to  do  so.  There  was, 
however,  no  trail.  How  difficult  to  keep  the  lad  quiet! 
I  expected  of  course  that  Haught  would  dismount,  and 
take  me  to  hunt  on  foot.  After  a  while  I  gathered  he 
did  not  hunt  deer  except  on  horseback.  He  explained 
that  cowboys  rounded  up  cattle  in  this  forest  in  the 


202  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

spring  and  fall,  and  deer  were  not  frightened  at  sound 
or  sight  of  a  horse.  Some  of  the  thrill  and  interest  in 
the  forest  subsided  for  me.  I  did  not  like  to  hunt  in  a 
country  where  cattle  ranged,  no  matter  how  wUd  they 
were.  Then  when  we  came  to  a  forested  ridge  bare  of 
grass  and  smelling  of  sheep,  that  robbed  the  forest  of  a 
little  more  glamour.  Mexican  sheep-herders  drove 
their  flocks  up  this  far  sometimes.  Haught  said  bear, 
lion,  lynx,  and  coyote,  sometimes  the  big  gray  wolves, 
followed  the  sheep.  Deer,  however,  hated  a  sheep- 
run  range. 

Riding  was  exceedingly  pleasant.  The  forest  was 
shady,  cool,  full  of  sunlight  and  beauty.  Nothing  but 
fire  or  the  lumbermen  could  ever  rob  it  of  its  beauty, 
silence,  fragrance,  and  of  its  temple-like  majesty.  So 
provided  we  did  not  meet  any  cattle  or  sheep  I  did  not 
can'  whether  or  not  we  sighted  any  game.  In  fact  I 
would  have  forgotten  we  were  hunting  had  not  Romer 
been  along.  With  him  continually  seeing  things  it  was 
difficult  to  keep  from  imagining  that  we  were  hunting 
Indians.  The  Apaches  had  once  lived  in  this  country 
Haught  informed  us;  and  it  was  a  habit  of  theirs  to 
burn  the  grass  and  fallen  leaves  over  every  fall,  thus 
keeping  down  the  underbrush.  In  this  the  Indians 
showed  how  near-sighted  they  were;  the  future  growth 
of  a  forest  did  not  concern  them.  Usually  Indians  were 
better  consei^vationists  than  white  men. 

We  rode  across  a  grove  of  widely  separated,  stately 
pines,  at  the  far  end  of  which  stood  a  thicket  of  young 
pines  and  other  brush.  As  we  neared  this  Haught 
suddenly  reined  in,  and  in  quick  and  noiseless  action  he 
dismounted.  Then  he  jerked  his  rifle  from  his  saddle- 
sheath,  took  a  couple  of  forward  steps,  and  leveled  it. 
I  was  so  struck  with  the  rugged  and  significant  picture 
he  made  that  I  did  not  dismount,  and  did  not  see  any 


TONTO  BASIN  203 

game  until  after  he  fired.  Then  as  I  tumbled  off  and 
got  out  my  rifle  I  heard  Romer  gasping  and  crying  out. 
A  gray  streak  with  a  bobbing  white  end  flashed  away 
out  of  sight  to  the  left.  Next  I  saw  a  deer  bounding 
through  the  thicket.  Haught  fired  again.  The  deer 
ran  so  fast  that  I  could  not  get  my  sights  anywhere 
near  him.  Haught  thudded  through  an  opening,  and 
an  instant  later,  when  both  he  and  the  deer  had  dis- 
appeared, he  shot  the  third  time.    Presently  he  returned. 

"Never  could  shoot  with  them  open  sights  nohow," 
he  said.  "Shore  I  missed  thet  yearlin'  buck  when  he 
was  standin'.    Why  didn't  you  smoke  him  up?" 

"Dad,  why  didn't  you  peg  him?"  asked  Romer, 
with  intense  regret.  "Why,  I  could  have  knocked 
him." 

Then  it  was  incumbent  upon  me  to  confess  that  the 
action  had  appeared  to  be  a  little  swift.  "Wal,"  said 
Haught,  "when  you  see  one  you  want  to  pile  off  quick." 

As  we  rode  on  Romer  naively  asked  me  if  ever  in  my 
life  I  had  seen  anything  run  so  fast  as  that  deer.  We 
entered  another  big  grove  with  thin  patches  of  thicket 
here  and  there.  Haught  said  these  were  good  places 
for  deer  to  lie  down,  relying  on  their  noses  to  scent 
danger  from  windward,  and  on  their  eyes  in  the  other 
direction.  We  circled  to  go  round  thickets,  descending 
somewhat  into  a  swale.  Here  Haught  got  off  a  little  to 
the  right.  Romer  and  I  rode  up  a  gentle  slope  toward 
a  thin  line  of  little  pines,  through  which  I  could  see  into 
the  pines  beyond.  Suddenly  up  jumped  three  big  gray 
bucks.  Literally  I  fell  off  my  horse,  bounced  up,  and 
pulled  out  my  rifle.  One  buck  was  loping  in  a  thicket. 
I  could  see  his  broad,  gray  body  behind  the  slender 
trees.  I  aimed — followed  him — got  a  bead  on  him — 
and  was  just  about  to  pull  trigger  when  he  vanished. 
Plunging  forward  I  yelled  to  Haught.     Then  Romer 


204  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

cried  in  his  shrill  treble:  "Dad,  here's  a  big  buck — 
hurry!"  Turning  I  ran  back.  In  wild  excitement 
Romer  was  pointing.  I  was  just  in  time  to  see  a  gray 
rump  disappear  in  the  green.  Just  then  Haught  shot, 
and  after  that  he  halloed.  Romer  and  I  went  through 
the  thicket,  working  to  our  left,  and  presently  came  out 
into  the  open  forest.  Haught  was  leading  his  horse. 
To  Romer's  eager  query  he  replied:  "Shore,  I  piled 
him  up.    Two-year-old  black-tail  buck." 

Sure  enough  he  had  shot  straight  this  time.  The 
buck  lay  motionless  under  a  pine,  with  one  point  of 
his  antlers  imbedded  deep  in  the  ground.  A  sleek,  gray, 
graceful  deer  he  was  just  beginning  to  get  his  winter 
coat.  His  color  was  indeed  a  bluish  gray.  Haught 
hung  him  up  to  a  branch,  spread  his  hind  legs,  and  cut 
him  down  the  middle.  The  hunter's  dexterity  with  a 
knife  made  me  wonder  how  many  deer  he  had  dressed 
in  his  life  in  the  open.  We  lifted  the  deer  upon  the 
saddle  of  Haught's  horse  and  securely  tied  it  there  with 
a  lasso;  then  with  the  hunter  on  foot,  leading  the  way, 
we  rode  through  the  forest  up  the  main  ridge  between 
Beaver  and  Turkey  Canyons.  Toward  the  rim  I  found 
the  pines  and  spruces  larger,  and  the  thickets  of  aspen 
denser.  We  passed  the  heads  of  many  ravines  running 
down  to  the  canyons  on  either  side,  and  these  were 
blazing  gold  and  red  in  color,  and  so  thick  I  could  not 
see  a  rod  into  them.  About  the  middle  of  the  afternoon 
we  reached  camp.  With  venison  hanging  up  to  cool 
we  felt  somewhat  like  real  hunters.  R.  C.  had  gone 
off  to  look  for  turkeys,  which  enterprise  had  been 
unsuccessful. 

Upon  the  following  day,  which  was  October  tenth,  we 
started  our  bear  hunting.  Haught's  method  appeared 
to  me  to  lack  something.  He  sent  the  hounds  down 
below  the  rim  with  George;   and  taking  R.  C.  and  me, 


TONTO  BASIN  205 

and  Lee  and  Nielsen,  he  led  us  over  to  what  he  called 
Horton  Thicket.  Never  would  I  forget  my  first  sight 
of  that  immense  forest-choked  canyon.  It  was  a  great 
cove  running  up  from  the  basin  into  the  rim.  Craggy 
ledges,  broken,  ruined,  tottering  and  gray,  slanted  down 
into  this  abyss.  The  place  was  so  vast  that  these  ledges 
appeared  far  apart,  yet  they  were  many.  An  empire  of 
splintered  cliff! 

High  up  these  cracked  and  stained  walls  were  cov- 
ered with  lichens,  with  little  spruces  growing  in  niches, 
and  tiny  yellow  bushes.  Points  of  crumbling  rock  were 
stained  gold  and  russet  and  bronze.  Below  the  huge 
gorge  was  full  of  aspens,  maples,  spruces — a  green, 
crimson,  yellow  density  of  timber,  apparently  impene- 
trable. We  were  accorded  different  stations  on  the 
ledges  all  around  the  cove,  and  instructed  to  stay  there 
until  called  by  four  blasts  from  a  hunting  horn.  My 
point  was  so  far  from  R.  C.'s,  across  the  canyon,  that 
I  had  to  use  my  field-glass  to  see  him.  When  I  did 
look  he  seemed  contented.  Lee  and  Nielsen  and  Haught 
I  could  not  see  at  all.  Finding  a  comfortable  seat,  if 
hard  rock  could  ever  be  that,  I  proceeded  to  accept  my 
wait  for  developments.  One  thing  was  sure — even 
though  it  were  a  futile  way  to  hunt  it  seemed  rich  in 
other  recompense  for  me.  My  stand  towered  above  a 
vast  colorful  slope  down  which  the  wind  roared  as  in  a 
gale.  How  could  I  ever  hear  the  hounds?  I  watched 
the  storm-clouds  scudding  across  the  sky.  Once  I  saw 
a  rare  bird,  a  black  eagle  in  magnificent  flight;  and  so 
whatever  happened  I  had  my  reward  in  that  sight. 

Nothing  happened.  For  hours  and  hours  I  sat  there, 
with  frequent  intermissions  away  from  my  hard,  rocky 
seat.  Toward  the  close  of  afternoon,  when  the  wind 
began  to  get  cold,  I  saw  that  R.  C.  had  left  his  stand. 
He  had  undoubtedly  gone  back  to  camp,  which  was 


2o6  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

some  miles  nearer  his  stand  than  mine.  At  last  I  gave 
up  any  hope  of  hearing  either  the  hounds  or  the  horn, 
as  the  roar  of  wind  had  increased.  Once  I  thought  I 
heard  a  distant  rifle  shot.  So  I  got  on  my  horse  and  set 
out  to  find  camp.  I  was  on  a  promontory,  the  sides  of 
which  were  indented  by  long  ravines  that  were  im- 
passable except  near  their  heads.  In  fact  I  had  been 
told  there  was  only  one  narrow  space  where  it  was  pos- 
sible to  get  off  this  promontory.  Lucky  indeed  that  I 
remembered  Haught  telling  of  this!  Anyway  I  soon 
found  myself  lost  in  a  maze  of  forested  heads  of  ravines. 
Finally  I  went  back  to  the  rim  on  the  west  side,  and  then 
working  along  I  found  our  horse-tracks.  These  I  fol- 
lowed, with  difficulty,  and  after  an  hour's  travel  I 
crossed  the  narrow  neck  of  the  promontory,  and  back- 
tracked myself  to  camp,  arriving  there  at  sunset. 

The  Haughts  had  put  up  two  bear.  One  bear  had 
worked  around  under  one  of  the  great  promontories. 
The  hounds  had  gotten  on  his  back-trail,  staying  on  it 
until  it  grew  cold,  then  had  left  it.  Their  baying  had 
roused  the  bear  out  of  his  bed,  and  he  had  showed  him- 
self once  or  twice  on  the  open  rock-slides.  Haught  saw 
the  other  bear  from  the  rim.  This  was  a  big,  red,  cin- 
namon bear  asleep  under  a  pine  tree  on  an  open  slope. 
Haught  said  when  the  hounds  gave  tongue  on  the  other 
trail  this  red  bear  awakened,  sat  up,  and  wagged  his 
head  slowly.  He  had  never  been  chased  by  hounds. 
He  lay  down  in  his  piny  bed  again.  The  distance  was 
too  great  for  an  accurate  shot,  but  Haught  tried  anyway, 
with  the  result  that  he  at  least  scared  the  cinnamon  off. 

These  bear  were  both  thin.  As  they  were  not  the 
sheep-killing  and  cow-killing  kind  their  food  consisted 
mainly  of  mast  (acorns)  and  berries.  But  this  season 
there  were  no  berries  at  all,  and  very  few  acorn^.  So 
the  bears  were  not  fat.    When  a  bear  was  thin  he  could 


TONTO  BASIN  207 

always  outrun  the  hounds;  if  he  was  fat  he  would  get 
hot  and  tired  enough  to  climb  a  tree  or  mad  enough 
to  stop  and  fight  the  dogs. 

Haught  told  me  there  were  a  good  many  mountain 
lions  and  lynx  under  the  rim.  They  lived  on  elk,  deer, 
and  turkey.  The  lynx  were  the  tuft-eared,  short- 
tailed  species.  They  would  attack  and  kill  a  cow-elk. 
In  winter  on  the  rim  the  snow  sometimes  fell  fifteen 
feet  deep,  so  that  the  game  wintered  underneath.  Snow 
did  not  lay  long  on  the  sunny,  open  ridges  of  the  basin. 

That  night  a  storm-wind  roared  mightily  in  the  pines. 
How  wonderful  to  lie  snug  in  bed,  down  in  the  protected 
canyon,  and  hear  the  marching  and  retreating  gale 
above  in  the  forest !  Next  day  we  expected  rain  or  snow. 
But  there  was  only  wind,  and  that  quieted  by  after- 
noon. So  I  took  Romer  off  into  the  woods.  He  car- 
ried his  rifle  and  he  wore  his  chaps.  I  could  not  per- 
suade him  to  part  with  these.  They  rustled  on  the  brush 
and  impeded  his  movements,  and  particularly  tired  him, 
and  made  him  look  like  a  diminutive  cowboy.  How 
eager,  keen,  boyishly  vain,  imaginative!  He  was  crazy 
to  see  game,  to  shoot  anything,  particularly  bears.  But 
it  contented  him  to  hunt  turkeys.  Many  a  stump  and 
bit  of  color  he  mistook  for  game  of  some  kind.  Never- 
theless, I  had  to  take  credence  in  what  he  thought  he 
saw,  for  his  eyesight  was  unusually  quick  and  keen. 

That  afternoon  Edd  and  Doyle  arrived,  reporting  an 
extremely  rough,  roundabout  climb  up  to  the  rim,  where 
they  had  left  the  wagon.  As  it  was  impossible  to  haul 
the  supplies  down  into  the  canyon  they  were  packed 
down  to  camp  on  burros.  Isbel  had  disapproved  of 
this  procedure,  a  circumstance  that  struck  me  with 
peculiar  significance,  which  Lee  explained  by  telling  me 
Isbel  was  one  of  the  peculiar  breed  of  cowboys,  who  no 
sooner  were  they  out  on  the  range  than  they  wanted  ^ 


2o8  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 


.4  <* 

1,1  "tv 


to  go  back  to  town  again.  The  truth  was  I  had  not 
met  any  of  that  breed,  though  I  had  heard  of  them. 
This  pecuHarity  of  Isbel's  began  to  be  related  in  my 
mind  to  his  wastefulness  as  a  cook.  He  cooked  and 
threw  away  as  much  as  we  ate.  I  asked  him  to  be  care- 
ful and  to  go  easy  with  our  supplies,  but  I  could  not  see 
that  my  request  made  any  difference. 

After  supper  this  evening  R.  C.  heard  a  turkey  call 
up  on  the  hill  east  of  camp.  Then  I  heard  it,  and 
Romer  also.  We  ran  out  a  ways  into  the  open  to  listen 
the  better.  R.  C.'s  ears  were  exceptionally  keen.  He 
could  hear  a  squirrel  jump  a  long  distance  in  the  forest. 
In  this  case  he  distinctly  heard  three  turkeys  fly  up 
into  trees.  I  heard  one,  Romer  declared  he  heard  a 
flock.  Then  R.  C.  located  a  big  bronze  and  white 
gobbler  on  a  lower  limb  of  a  huge  pine.  Presently  I 
too  espied  it.  Whereupon  we  took  shot-gun  and  rifle, 
and  sallied  forth  sure  of  fetching  back  to  camp  some 
wild  turkey  meat.    Romer  tagged  at  our  heels. 

Hurrying  to  the  slope  we  climbed  up  at  least  three- 
quarters  of  the  way,  as  swiftly  as  possible.  And  that 
was  work  enough  to  make  me  wet  and  hot.  The  sun 
had  set  and  twilight  was  upon  us,  so  that  we  needs  must 
hurry  if  we  were  to  be  successful.  Locating  the  big 
gobbler  turned  out  to  be  a  task.  We  had  to  climb  over 
brush  and  around  rocks,  up  a  steep  slope,  rather  open; 
and  w^e  had  to  do  it  without  being  seen  or  making  noise. 
Romer,  despite  his  eagerness,  did  very  well  indeed.  At 
last  I  espied  our  quarry,  and  indeed  the  sight  was 
thrilling.  Wild  turkey  gobblers  to  me,  iwho  had  hunted 
them  enough  to  learn  how  sagacious  and  cunning  and 
difficult  to  stalk  they  were,' always  seemed  as  provoca- 
tive of  excitement  as  larger  game.  This  big  fellow 
hopped  up  from  limb  to  limb  of  the  huge  dead  pine,  and 
he  bobbed  around  as  if  undecided,  and  tried  each  limb 


TONTO  BASIN  209 

for  a  place  to  roost.  Then  he  hopped  farther  up  until 
we  lost  sight  of  him  in  the  gnarled  net-work  of  branches. 

R.  C.  wanted  me  to  slip  on  alone,  but  I  preferred  to 
have  him  and  Romer  go  too.  So  we  slipped  stealthily 
upward  until  we  reached  the  level.  Then  progress  was 
easier.  I  went  to  the  left  with  the  rifle,  and  R.  C.  with 
the  .20-gauge,  and  Romer,  went  around  to  the  right. 
How  rapidly  it  was  growing  dark!  Low  down  in  the 
forest  I  could  not  distinguish  objects.  We  circled  that 
big  pine  tree,  and  I  made  rather  a  wide  detour,  per- 
haps eighty  yards  from  it.  At  last  I  got  the  upper  part 
of  the  dead  pine  silhouetted  against  the  western  sky. 
Moving  to  and  fro  I  finally  made  out  a  large  black  lump 
way  out  upon  a  spreading  branch.  Could  that  be  the 
gobbler?  I  studied  that  dark  enlarged  part  of  the  limb 
with  great  intentness,  and  I  had  about  decided  that  it 
was  only  a  knot  when  I  saw  a  long  neck  shoot  out.  That 
lump  was  the  wise  old  turkey  all  right.  He  was  almost 
in  the  top  of  the  tree  and  far  out  from  the  trunk.  No 
wild  cat  or  lynx  could  ever  surprise  him  there!  I  re- 
flected upon  the  instinct  that  governed  him  to  protect 
his  life  so  cunningly.  Safe  he  was  from  all  but  man 
and  gun ! 

When  I  came  to  aim  at  him  with  the  rifle  I  found 
that  I  could  see  only  a  blur  of  sights.  Other  branches 
and  the  tip  of  a  very  high  pine  adjoining  made  a  dark 
background.  I  changed  my  position,  working  around 
to  where  the  background  was  all  open  sky.  It  proved 
to  be  better.  By  putting  the  sights  against  this  open 
sky  I  could  faintly  see  the  front  sight  through  the 
blurred  ring.  It  was  a  good  long  shot  even  for  daylight, 
and  I  had  a  rifle  I  knew  nothing  about.  But  all  the 
difficulty  only  made  a  keener  zest.  Just  then  I  heard 
Romer  cry  out  excitedly,  and  then  R.  C.  spoke  distinctl3^ 
Fgir  more  careless  than  that  they  began  to  break  twigs 


2IO  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

under  their  feet.  The  gobbler  grew  uneasy.  How  he 
stretched  out  his  long  neck!  He  heard  them  below. 
I  called  out  low  and  sharp:  "Stand  still!  Be  quiet!" 
Then  I  looked  again  through  the  blurred  peep-sight  until 
I  caught  the  front  sight  against  the  open  sky.  This 
done  I  moved  the  rifle  over  until  I  had  the  sight  aligned 
against  the  dark  shape.  Straining  my  eyes  I  held  hard 
— then  fired.  The  big  dark  lump  on  the  branch  changed 
shape,  and  fell,  to  alight  with  a  sounding  thump.  I 
heard  Romer  running,  but  could  not  see  him.  Then 
his  high  voice  pealed  out:  "I  got  him,  Dad.  You  made 
a  grand  peg!" 

Not  only  had  Romer  gotten  him,  but  he  insisted  on 
packing  him  back  to  camp.  The  gobbler  was  the  larg- 
est I  ever  killed,  not  indeed  one  of  the  huge  thirty-five 
pounders,  but  a  fat,  heavy  turkey,  and  quite  a  load  for 
a  boy.  Romer  packed  him  down  that  steep  slope  in  the 
dark  without  a  slip,  for  which  performance  I  allowed 
him  to  stay  up  a  while  around  the  camp-fire. 

The  Haughts  came  over  from  their  camp  that  night 
and  visited  us.  Much  as  I  loved  to  sit  alone  beside  a 
red-embered  fire  at  night  in  the  forest,  or  on  the  desert, 
I  also  liked  upon  occasions  to  have  company.  We 
talked  and  talked.  Old-timer  Doyle  told  more  than 
one  of  his  "in  the  early  days"  stories.  Then  Haught 
told  us  some  bear  stories.  The  first  was  about  an  old 
black  bear  charging  and  sliding  down  at  him.  He  said 
no  hunter  should  ever  shoot  at  a  bear  above  him, 
because  it  could  come  down  at  him  as  swiftly  as  a  roll- 
ing rock.  This  time  he  worked  the  lever  of  his  rifle 
at  lightning  speed,  and  at  the  last  shot  he  "shore  saw 
bar  hair  right  before  his  eyes."  His  second  story  was 
about  a  boy  who  killed  a  bear,  and  was  skinning  it 
when  five  more  bears  came  along,  in  single  file,  and 
made  it  very  necessary  that  he  climb  a  tree  until  they 


TONTO  BASIN  211 

had  gone.  His  third  story  was  about  an  old  she-bear 
that  had  two  cubs.  Haught  happened  to  ride  within 
sight  of  her  when  evidently  she  thought  it  time  to  put 
her  cubs  in  a  safe  place.  So  she  tried  to  get  them  to 
climb  a  spruce  tree,  and  finally  had  to  cuff  and  spank 
them  to  make  them  go  up.  In  connection  with  this 
story  he  told  us  he  had  often  seen  she-bears  spank  their 
cubs.  More  thrilling  was  his  fourth  story  about  a  huge 
grizzly,  a  sheep  and  cattle  killer  that  passed  through 
the  country,  leaving  death  behind  him  on  the  range. 

Romer's  enjoyment  of  this  story-telling  hour  around 
the  glowing  camp-fire  was  equalled  by  his  reluctance 
to  go  to  bed.  "Aw,  Dad,  please  let  me  hear  one  more," 
he  pleaded.  His  shining  eyes  would  have  weakened  a 
sterner  discipline  than  mine.  And  Haught  seemed 
inspired  by  them. 

"Wal  now,  listen  to  this  hyar,"  he  began  again,  with 
a  twinkle  in  his  eye.  "Thar  was  an  old  fellar  had  a 
ranch  in  Chevelon  Canyon,  an'  he  was  always  bein' 
pestered  by  mountain  lions.  His  name  was  Bill  Tinker. 
Now  Bill  was  no  sort  of  a  hunter,  fact  was  he  was 
afeerd  of  lions  an'  bears,  but  he  shore  did  git  riled 
when  any  critters  rustled  around  his  cabin.  One  day 
in  the  fall  he  comes  home  an'  seen  a  big  she-lion  sneakin' 
around.  He  grabbed  a  club,  an'  throwed  it,  and  yelled 
to  scare  the  critter  away.  Wal,  he  had  an  old  water 
barrel  layin'  around,  an'  darned  if  the  lion  didn't  run 
in  thet  barrel  an'  hide.  Bill  run  quick  an'  flopped  the 
barrel  end  up,  so  he  had  the  lion  trapped.  He  had  to 
set  on  the  barrel  to  hold  it  down.  Shore  that  lion 
raised  old  Jasper  under  the  barrel.  Bill  was  plumb 
scared.  Then  he  seen  the  lion's  tail  stick  out  through 
the  bung-hole.  Bill  bent  over  an'  shore  quick  tied  a 
knot  in  thet  long  tail.  Then  he  run  fer  his  cabin.  When 
he  got  to  the  door  he  looked  back  to  see  the  lion  tearin' 


212  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

down  the  hill  fer  the  woods  with  the  barrel  bumpin' 
behind  her.  Bill  said  he  never  seen  her  again  till  next 
spring,  an'  she  had  the  barrel  still  on  her  tail.  -  But 
what  was  stranger'n  thet  Bill  swore  she  had  four  cubs 
with  her  an'  each  of  them  had  a  keg  on  its  tail."  ,v^ 

We  all  roared  with  laughter  except  Romer.  '  His 
interest  had  been  so  all-absorbing,  his  excitement  so 
great,  and  his  faith  in  the  story-teller  so  reverential 
that  at  first  he  could  not  grasp  the  trick  at  the  end  of 
the  story.  His  face  was  radiant,  his  eyes  were  dark  and 
dilated.  When  the  truth  dawned  upon  him,  amaze  and 
disappointment  changed  his  mobile  face,  and  then  came 
mirth.  He  shouted  as  if  to  the  tree-tops  on  high.  Long 
after  he  was  in  bed  I  heard  him  laughing  to  himself. 

I  was  awakened  a  little  after  daylight  by  the  lad 
trying  to  get  into  his  boots.  His  boots  were  rather 
tight,  and  somehow,  even  in  a  dry  forest,  he  always 
contrived  to  get  them  wet,  so  that  in  the  morning  it 
was  a  herculean  task  for  him  to  pull  them  on.  This 
occasion  appeared  more  strenuous  than  usual.  "Son, 
what's  the  idea?"  I  inquired.  "It's  just  daylight — 
not  time  to  get  up."  He  desisted  from  his  labors  long 
enough  to  pant:  "Uncle  Rome's — gone  after  turkeys. 
Edd's  going  to — call  them  with — a  caller — made  out 
of  a  turkey's  wing-bone."  And  I  said:  "But  they've 
gone  now."  Whereupon  he  subsided:  "Darned  old 
boots!  I  heard  Edd  and  Uncle  Rome.  I'd  been  ready 
if  I  could  have  got  into  my  darned  old  boots.  .  .  .  See 
here,  Dad,  I'm  gonna  wear  moccasins." 

Ill 

As  we  were  sitting  round  the  camp-fire,  eating  break- 
fast, R.  C.  and  Edd  returned;  and  R.  C.  carried  a  turkey 
gobbler  the  very  size  and  color  of  the  one  I  had  shot  the 


ZANE    GREY   ON    DON    CARLOS 


WILD    TLRREV 


TONTO  BASIN  213 

night  before.  R.  C.'s  face  wore  the  keen,  pleased  expres- 
sion characteristic  of  it  when  he  had  just  had  some  un- 
usual and  satisfying  experience. 

"Sure  was  great,"  he  said,  warming  his  hands  at  the 
fire.  "We  went  up  on  the  hill  where  you  killed  your 
gobbler  last  night.  Got  there  just  in  the  gray  light  of 
dawn.  We  were  careful  not  to  make  any  noise.  Edd 
said  if  there  were  any  more  turkeys  they  would  come 
down  at  daylight.  So  we  waited  until  it  was  light  enough 
to  see.  Then  Edd  got  out  his  turkey  bone  and  began  to 
call.  Turkeys  answered  from  the  trees  all  around.  By 
George,  it  was  immense !  Edd  had  picked  out  a  thicket 
of  little  pines  for  us  to  hide  in,  and  in  front  of  us  was  a 
glade  with  a  big  fallen  tree  lying  across  it.  Edd  waited 
a  few  moments.  The  woods  was  all  gray  and  quiet.  I 
don't  know  when  I've  felt  so  good.  Then  he  called  again. 
At  once  turkeys  answered  from  all  around  in  the  trees. 
Next  I  heard  a  swish  of  wings,  then  a  thump.  Then 
more  swishes.  The  turkeys  were  flying  down  from  their 
roosts.  It  seemed  to  me  in  my  excitement  that  there 
were  a  hundred  of  them.  We  could  hear  them  pattering 
over  the  dry  ground.  Edd  whispered:  'They're  down. 
Now  we  got  to  do  some  real  callin'.'  .  I  felt  how  tense, 
how  cautious  he  was.  When  he  called  again  there  was 
some  little  difference,  I  don't  know  what,  unless  it  was 
his  call  sounded  more  like  a  real  turkey.  They  answered. 
They  were  gathering  in  front  of  us,  and  I  made  sure  were 
coming  into  the  glade.  Edd  stopped  calling.  Then  he 
whispered:  'Ready  now.  Look  out!'  .  .  .  Sure  I  was 
looking  all  right.  This  was  my  first  experience  calling 
turkeys  and  I  simply  shook  all  over.  Suddenly  I  saw  a 
turkey  head  stick  up  over  the  log.  Then! — up  hopped 
a  beautiful  gobbler.  He  walked  along  the  log,  looked 
and  peered,  and  stretched  his  neck.  Sure  he  was  suspi- 
cious.    Edd  gave  me  a  hunch,  which  I  took  to  be  a  warn- 

15 


214  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

ing  to  shoot  quick.  That  was  a  hard  place  for  me.  I 
wanted  to  watch  the  gobbler.  I  wanted  to  see  the  others. 
We  could  hear  them  all  over  the  glade.  But  this  was  my 
chance.  Quickly  I  rose  and  took  a  peg  at  him.  A  cloud 
of  feathers  puffed  off  him.  He  gave  a  great  bounce, 
flapping  his  wings.  I  heard  a  roaring  whirr  of  other 
turkeys.  With  my  eye  on  my  gobbler  I  seemed  to  see 
the  air  full  of  big,  black,  flying  things.  My  gobbler  came 
down,  bounced  up  again,  got  going — when  with  the 
second  barrel  I  knocked  him  cold.  Then  I  stood  there 
watching  the  flock  whirring  every  way  into  the  forest. 
Must  have  been  thirty-five  or  forty  of  them,  all  gobblers. 
It  was  a  great  sight.  And  right  here  I  declared  myself — 
wild  turkey  is  the  game  for  me." 

Romer  manifestly  listened  to  this  narrative  with 
mingled  feelings  of  delight  and  despair.  "Uncle  Rome, 
wild  turkey's  the  game  for  me,  too  .  .  .  and  by  Gosh! 
I'll  fix  those  boots  of  mine!" 

That  morning  we  were  scheduled  for  another  bear  hunt, 
on  which  I  had  decided  to  go  down  under  the  rim  with 
Edd  and  George.  Lee  had  his  doubts  about  my  horse, 
and  desired  me  to  take  his,  or  at  least  one  of  the  others. 
Now  his  horse  was  too  spirited  for  me  to  ride  after  hounds, 
and  I  did  not  want  to  take  one  of  the  others,  so  I  was 
compelled  to  ride  my  own.  At  the  last  moment  Lee  had 
been  disappointed  in  getting  a  mustang  he  particularly 
wanted  for  me,  and  so  it  had  fallen  about  that  my  horse 
was  the  poorest  in  the  outfit,  which  to  put  it  mildly  was 
pretty  poor.  I  had  made  the  best  of  the  matter  so  far, 
and  hoped  to  continue  doing  so. 

We  rode  up  the  east  slope  of  Beaver  Dam  Canyon, 
through  the  forest,  and  out  along  the  rim  for  five  or  six 
miles,  way  on  the  other  side  of  the  promontory  where  I 
had  gotten  lost.  Here  Haught  left  us,  taking  with  him 
R.  C.  and  Lee  and  Nielsen,  all  of  whom  were  to  have 


TONTO  BASIN  215 

stands  along  the  rim.    We  hoped  to  start  a  bear  and  chase 
him  round  under  the  high  points  toward  Horton  Thicket, 

The  magnificent  view  from  the  head  of  a  trail  where 
Edd  started  down  impressed  me  so  powerfully  that  I 
lagged  behind.  Below  me  heaved  a  split,  tossed,  dimpled, 
waving,  rolling  world  of  black-green  forestland.  Far 
across  it  stood  up  a  rugged,  blue,  waved  range  of  moun- 
tains— the  Sierra  Anchas. 

The  trail  was  rough,  even  for  Arizonians,  which  made 
it  for  me  little  short  of  impassable.  I  got  off  to  lead  my 
horse.  He  had  to  be  pulled  most  of  the  time,  wherefore 
I  lost  patience  with  him.  I  loved  horses,  but  not  stub- 
born ones.  All  the  way  down  the  rocky  trail  the  bunch 
grass  and  wild  oak  and  manzanita  w^ere  so  thick  that  I 
had  to  crush  my  way  through.  At  length  I  had  de- 
scended the  steep  part  to  find  Edd  and  George  waiting 
for  me  below  on  the  juniper  benches.  These  were  slopes 
of  red  earth  or  clay,  bare  of  grass,  but  thick  with  junipers, 
cactus,  and  manzanita.  This  face  of  the  great  rim  was  a 
southern  exposure,  hot  and  dusty.  The  junipers  were 
thick.  The  green  of  their  foliage  somewhat  resembled 
cedars,  but  their  berries  were  gray-blue,  almost  lavender 
in  color.  I  tasted  several  from  different  trees,  until  I 
found  one  with  sweet,  somewhat  acrid  taste.  Significant 
it  was  that  this  juniper  had  broken  branches  where  bears 
had  climbed  to  eat  the  fruit,  and  all  around  on  the  ground 
beneath  was  bear  sign.  Edd  said  the  tracks  were  cold, 
but  all  the  same  he  had  to  be  harsh  with  the  hounds  to 
hold  them  in.  I  counted  twenty  piles  of  bear  manure 
under  one  juniper,  and  n.any  places  where  bears  had 
scraped  in  the  soft  earth  and  needles. 

We  went  on  down  this  slope,  getting  into  thicker  brush 
and  rougher  ground.  All  at  once  the  hounds  opened  up 
in  thrilling  chorus  of  bays  and  barks.  I  saw  Edd  jump 
off  his  horse  to  stoop  and  examine  the  ground,  where 


2i6  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

evidently  he  had  seen  a  bear  track.  "Fresh — made  last 
night!"  he  yelled,  mounting  hurriedly.  "Hi!  Hi!  Hi!" 
His  horse  leaped  through  the  brush,  and  George  followed. 
In  an  instant  they  were  out  of  sight.  Right  there  my 
trouble  began.  I  spurred  my  horse  after  them,  and  it 
developed  that  he  differed  from  me  in  regard  to  direction 
and  going.  He  hated  the  brush.  But  I  made  him  take 
to  it  and  made  him  run.  Dodging  branches  was  an  old 
story  for  me,  and  if  I  had  been  on  a  good  fast  horse  I 
might  have  kept  Edd  and  George  in  sight.  As  it  v/as, 
however,  I  had  to  follow  them  by  the  sound  of  hoofs 
and  breaking  brush.  From  the  way  the  hounds  bayed 
I  knew  they  had  struck  a  hot  scent.  They  worked  down 
the  slope,  and  assuredly  gave  me  a  wild  ride  to  keep 
within  hearing  of  them.  My  horse  grew  excited,  which 
fact  increased  his  pace,  his  obstinacy,  and  likewise  my 
danger.  Twice  he  unseated  me.  I  tore  my  coat,  lost 
my  hat,  scratched  my  face,  skinned  my  knees,  but  some- 
how I  managed  to  keep  within  hearing. 

I  came  to  a  deep  brush-choked  gorge,  impassable  at 
that  point.  Luckily  the  hounds  turned  here  and  started 
back  my  way.  By  riding  along  the  edge  of  this  gorge  I 
kept  up  with  them.  They  climbed  out  an  intersecting 
ravine  and  up  on  the  opposite  side.  I  forced  my  horse 
to  go  down  this  rather  steep  soft  slope.  At  the  bottom  I 
saw  a  little  spring  of  water  with  fresh  bear  tracks  around 
it,  and  one  place  where  the  bear  had  caved  in  a  soft  bank. 
Here  my  horse  suddenly  plunged  and  went  to  his  knees 
in  the  yielding  red  clay.  He  snorted  in  fright.  The 
bank  slid  with  him  and  I  tumbled  off.  But  nothing 
serious  happened.  I  ran  down,  caught  him,  mounted, 
and  spurred  him  up  the  other  side.  Once  up  he  began 
to  run.  I  heard  the  boys  yelling  not  far  away  and  the 
hounds  were  baying  up  above  me.  They  were  climbing 
fast,  working  to  the  left,  toward  an  oak  thicket.     It  took 


TONTO  BASIN  217 

effort  to  slow  down  my  steed.  He  acted  crazy  and  I 
began  to  suspect  that  he  had  caught  a  whiff  of  the  bear. 
Most  horses  are  afraid  of  bears  and  lions.  Sight  of  Edd 
and  George,  who  appeared  in  an  open  spot,  somewhat 
quieted  my  mount. 

"Trail's  gettin'  hot  up  there,"  declared  Edd.  "That 
bear's  bedded  somewhere  an'  I'll  bet  the  hounds  jumped 
him.     Listen  to  Old  Tom!" 

How  the  deep  sonorous  bay  of  Old  Tom  awoke  the 
echoes  under  the  cliffs!  And  Old  Dan's  voice  was  a 
hoarse  bellow.     The  other  hounds  yelped. 

Edd  blew  a  mellow  blast  from  his  hunting-horn,  and 
that  awoke  other  and  more  melodious  echoes.  "There's 
father  up  on  the  rim,"  he  said.  I  looked,  and  finally  saw 
Haught  perched  like  a  black  eagle  on  a  crag.  His  gun 
flashed  in  the  strong  sunlight. 

Somewhere  up  there  the  hounds  jumped  the  bear. 
Anybody  could  have  told  that.  What  a  wild  chorus! 
Edd  and  George  answered  to  it  with  whoops  as  wild,  and 
they  galloped  their  horses  over  ground  and  through 
brush  where  they  should  have  been  walked.  I  followed, 
or  tried  to  follow;  and  here  my  steed  showed  his  bull- 
headed,  obstinate  nature.  If  he  had  been  afraid  but  still 
game  I  would  have  respected  him,  but  he  was  a  coward 
and  mean.  He  wanted  to  have  his  way,  which  was  to 
go  the  other  direction,  and  to  rid  himself  of  me.  So  we 
had  it  hot  and  heavy  along  that  rough  slope,  with  honors 
about  even.  As  for  bruises  and  scratches,  however,  I 
sustained  the  most.  In  the  excitement  of  the  chase  and 
anger  at  the  horse  I  forgot  all  about  any  risks.  This 
always  is  the  way  in  adventure.  Hot  racing  blood 
governed  me  entirely.  Whenever  I  got  out  in  an  open 
place,  where  I  could  ride  fast  and  hear  and  see,  then  it 
was  all  intensely  thrilling.  Both  hounds  and  comrades 
were  above  me,  but  apparently  v/orking  down. 


2i8  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

Thus  for  me  the  necessity  of  hurry  somewhat  lessened. 
I  slowed  to  a  trot,  peering  every w^here,  listening  with  all 
my  ears.  I  had  stopped  yelling,  because  my  horse  had 
misunderstood  that.  We  got  into  a  region  of  oak  thick- 
ets, small  saplings,  scrubby,  close  together,  but  beautiful 
with  their  autumn-tinted  leaves.  Next  I  rode  through 
a  maple  dell,  shady,  cool,  where  the  leafy  floor  was  all 
rose-pink-red.     My  horse  sent  the  colored  leaves  flying. 

Soon,  however,  we  got  into  the  thickets  again,  low 
live-oak  and  manzanita,  which  kind  of  brush  my  horse 
detested.  I  did  not  blame  him  for  that.  As  the  hounds 
began  to  work  down  my  keen  excitement  increased.  If 
they  had  jumped  the  bear  and  were  chasing  him  down 
I  might  run  upon  him  any  moment.  This  both  appealed 
to  me  and  caused  me  apprehension.  Suppose  he  were  a 
bad  cinnamon  or  a  grizzly?  What  would  become  of  me 
on  that  horse?  I  decided  that  I  had  better  carry  my 
rifle  in  my  hand,  so  in  case  of  a  sudden  appearance  of  the 
bear  and  I  was  thrown  or  had  a  fall  off,  then  I  would  be 
prepared.  So  forthwith  I  drew  the  rifle  out  of  the  scab- 
bard, remembering  as  I  did  so  that  Haught  had  cautioned 
me,  in  case  of  close  quarters  with  a  bear  and  the  need  of 
quick  shooting,  to  jerk  the  lever  down  hard.  If  my 
horse  had  cut  up  abominably  before  he  now  began  to 
cover  himself  with  a  glory  of  abominableness.  I  had  to 
jam  him  through  the  thickets.  He  was  an  uncomfort- 
able horse  to  ride  under  the  best  circumstances ;  here  he 
was  as  bad  as  riding  a  picket-fence.  When  he  got  his 
head,  which  was  often,  he  carried  me  into  thickets  of 
manzanita  that  we  could  not  penetrate,  and  had  to  turn 
back.  I  found  that  I  was  working  high  up  the  slope,  and 
bad  luck  as  I  was  having  with  my  horse,  I  still  appeared 
to  keep  fairly  close  to  the  hounds. 

When  we  topped  a  ridge  of  this  slope  the  vdnd  struck 
us  strong  in  the  face.     The  baying  of  the  hounds  rang 


TONTO  BASIN  219 

clear  and  full  and  fierce.  My  horse  stood  straight  up. 
Then  he  plunged  back  and  bolted  down  the  slope.  His 
mouth  was  like  iron.  I  could  neither  hold  nor  turn  him. 
However  perilous  this  ride  I  had  to  admit  that  at  last 
my  horse  was  running  beautifully.  In  fact  he  was  run- 
ning away!  He  had  gotten  a  hot  scent  of  that  bear. 
He  hurdled  rocks,  leaped  washes,  slid  down  banks, 
plunged  over  places  that  made  my  hair  stand  up  stiff, 
and  worst  of  all  he  did  not  try  to  avoid  brush  or  trees  or 
cactus.  Manzanita  he  tore  right  through,  leaving  my 
coat  in  strips  decorating  our  wake.  I  had  to  hold  on,  to 
lie  flat,  to  dodge  and  twist,  and  all  the  time  watch  for 
a  place  where  I  might  fall  off  in  safety.  But  I  did  not 
get  a  chance  to  fall  off.  A  loud  clamoring  burst  from 
the  hounds  apparently  close  behind  drove  my  horse 
frantic.  Before  he  had  only  run — now  he  flew !  He  left 
me  hanging  in  the  thick  branches  of  a  juniper,  from 
which  I  dropped  blind  and  breathless  and  stunned. 
Disengaging  myself  from  the  broken  and  hanging 
branches  I  staggered  aside,  rifle  in  hand,  trying  to  recover 
breath  and  wits. 

Then,  in  that  nerveless  and  shaken  condition,  I  heard 
the  breaking  of  twigs  and  thud  of  soft  steps  right  above 
me.  Peering  up  with  my  half-blinded  eyes  I  saw  a  huge 
red  furry  animal  coming,  half  obscured  by  brush.  It 
waved  aside  from  his  broad  back.  A  shock  ran  over 
me — a  bursting  gush  of  hot  blood  that  turned  to  ice  as  it 
rushed.     "Big  cinnamon  bear !"  I  whispered,  hoarsely. 

Instinctively  I  cocked  and  leveled  the  rifle,  and  though 
I  could  not  clearly  see  the  red  animal  bearing  down  the 
slope,  such  was  my  state  that  I  fired.  Then  followed  a 
roaring  crash — a  terrible  breaking  onslaught  upon  the 
brush — and  the  huge  red  mass  seemed  to  flash  down 
toward  me.  I  worked  the  lever  of  the  rifle.  But  I  had 
forgotten  Haught's  caution.     I  did  not  work  the  lever 


220  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

far  enough  down,  so  that  the  next  cartridge  jammed  in 
the  receiver.  With  a  second  shock,  different  this  time, 
I  tried  again.  In  vain!  The  terrible  crashing  of  brush 
appeared  right  upon  me.  For  an  instant  that  seemed  an 
age  I  stood  riveted  to  the  spot,  my  blood  congealing,  my 
heart  choking  me,  my  tongue  pasted  to  the  roof  of  my 
mouth.  Then  I  dropped  the  rifle  and  whirled  to  plunge 
away.  Like  a  deer  I  bounded.  I  took  prodigious 
bounds.  To  escape — to  find  a  tree  to  leap  into — that 
was  my  only  thought.  A  few  rods  down  the  slope — it 
seemed  a  mile— I  reached  a  pine  with  low  branches. 
Like  a  squirrel  I  ran  up  this — straddled  a  limb  high  up— 
and  gazed  back. 

My  sensations  then  were  dominated  by  the  relief  of 
salvation,  I  became  conscious  of  them.  Racing  blood, 
bursting  heart,  labored  pang  of  chest,  prickling,  burning 
skin,  a  queer  involuntary  flutter  of  muscles,  like  a  palsy — 
these  attested  to  the  instinctive  primitive  nature  of  my 
state.  I  heard  the  crashing  of  brush,  the  pound  of  soft 
jumps  over  to  my  left.  "With  eyes  that  seemed  magni- 
fying I  gazed  to  see  a  big  red  woolly  steer  plunge  wildly 
down  the  slope  and  disappear.  A  third  shock  possessed 
me — amaze.  I  had  mistaken  a  wild,  frightened  steer  for 
a  red  cinnamon  bear! 

I  sat  there  some  moments  straddling  that  branch. 
Then  I  descended,  and  went  back  to  the  place  I  had 
dropped  my  rifle,  and  securing  that  I  stood  a  moment 
listening.  The  hounds  had  taken  the  chase  around  below 
me  into  the  gorge  and  were  drawing  away.  It  was  use- 
less to  try  to  follow  them.  I  sat  down  again  and  gave 
myself  up  to  meditation. 

I  tried  to  treat  the  situation  as  a  huge  joke,  but  that 
would  not  go.  No  joke  indeed!  My  horse  had  made 
me  risk  too  much,  my  excitement  had  been  too  intense, 
my  fright  had  been  too  terrible.     Reality  for  me  could 


TONTO  BASIN  221 

not  have  been  any  more  grave.  I  had  risked  my  neck 
on  a  stubborn  coward  of  a  horse,  I  had  mistaken  a  steer 
for  a  bear,  I  had  forgotten  how  to  manipulate  the  bor- 
rowed rifle.  These  were  the  careless  elements  of  tragedy. 
The  thought  sobered  me.  I  took  the  lesson  to  heart. 
And  I  reflected  on  the  possible  point  of  view  of  the  bear. 
He  had  probably  gone  to  sleep  on  a  full  stomach  of 
juniper  berries  and  a  big  drink  of  spring  water.  Rudely 
he  had  been  routed  out  by  a  pack  of  yelping,  fiendish 
hounds.  He  had  to  run  for  his  life.  What  had  he  done 
to  deserve  such  treatment?  Possibly  he  might  have 
killed  some  of  Haught's  pigs,  but  most  assuredly  he  had 
never  harmed  me.  In  my  sober  frame  of  mind  then  I 
rather  disapproved  of  my  wholly  unjustifiable  murderous 
intent.  I  would  have  deserved  it  if  the  steer  had  really 
been  the  bear.  Certainly  I  hoped  the  bear  would  outrun 
the  hounds  and  escape.  I  weighed  the  wonderful  thrill 
of  the  chase,  the  melody  of  hounds,  the  zest  of  spirited 
action,  the  peril  to  limb  and  life  against  the  thing  that 
they  were  done  for,  with  the  result  that  I  found  them 
sadly  lacking.  Peril  to  limb  and  life  was  good  for  man. 
If  this  had  not  been  a  fact  my  performance  would  have 
been  as  cowardly  as  that  of  my  horse.  Again  I  had  rise 
up  before  my  mind  the  spectacle  of  opposing  forces — the 
elemental  in  man  restrained  by  the  spiritual.  Then  the 
old  haunting  thought  returned  to  vex  me — man  in  his 
development  needed  the  exercise  of  brawn,  muscle,  bone 
red-blood,  violence,  labor  and  pain  and  agony.  Nature 
recognized  only  the  survival  of  the  fittest  of  any  species. 
If  a  man  allowed  a  spiritual  development,  intellect, 
gentleness,  to  keep  him  from  all  hard,  violent  action, 
from  tremendous  exertion,  from  fierce  fight  with  elements 
and  beasts,  and  his  own  kind — would  he  not  soon  degen- 
erate as  a  natural  physical  man  ?  Evolution  was  a  stem 
inevitable  seeking  of  nature  for  perfection,  for  the  un- 


222  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

attainable.  This  perfection  was  something  that  lived 
and  improved  on  strife.  Barbarians,  Indians,  savages 
were  the  most  perfect  specimens  of  nature's  handiwork; 
and  in  proportion  to  their  development  toward  so-called 
civilized  life  their  physical  prowess  and  perfectness — that 
was  to  say,  their  strength  to  resist  and  live  and  reproduce 
their  kind — absolutely  and  inevitably  deteriorated. 

My  reflection  did  not  carry  me  at  that  time  to  any 
positive  convictions  of  what  was  truest  and  best.  The 
only  conclusions  I  eventually  arrived  at  were  that  I  was 
sore  and  bruised  and  dirty  and  torn — that  I  w^ould  be 
happy  if  the  bear  got  away — that  I  had  lost  my  mean 
horse  and  was  glad  therefore — that  I  would  have  half 
a  dozen  horses  and  rifles  upon  my  next  hunt — and  lastly 
that  I  would  not  be  in  any  hurry  to  tell  about  mistaking 
a  steer  for  a  bear,  and  climbing  a  tree.  Indeed  these  last 
facts  have  been  religiously  kept  secret  until  chronicled 
here. 

Shortly  afterward,  as  I  w^as  making  a  lame  and  slow 
headway  toward  Horton  Thicket,  where  I  hoped  to  find 
a  trail  out,  I  heard  Edd  yelling,  and  I  answered.  Pres- 
ently we  met.  He  was  leading  my  horse,  and  some  of  the 
hounds,  notably  Old  Tom  and  Dan,  were  with  him. 

"Where's  the  bear?"  I  asked. 

"He  got  away  down  in  the  breaks,"  replied  Edd. 
"George  is  tryin'  to  call  the  hounds  back.  What  hap- 
pened to  you?     I  heard  you  shoot." 

"My  horse  didn't  care  much  for  me  or  the  brush," 
I  replied.  ' '  He  left  me — rather  suddenly.  And — I  took 
a  shot  at  what  I  thought  was  a  bear." 

' '  I  seen  him  once, ' '  said  Edd,  with  eyes  flashing.  ' '  Was 
just  goin'  to  smoke  him  up  when  he  jumped  out  of  sight." 

My  mortification  and  apprehension  were  somewhat 
mitigated  when  I  observed  that  Edd  was  dirty,  ragged, 
and  almost  as  much  disheveled  as  I  was.     I  had  feared 


TONTO  BASIN  223 

he  would  see  in  my  appearance  certain  unmistakable 
evidences  that  I  had  made  a  tenderfoot  blunder  and  then 
run  for  my  life.  But  Edd  took  my  loss  of  hat,  and  torn 
coat,  and  general  bedraggled  state  as  a  matter  of  course. 
Indeed  I  somehow  felt  a  little  pride  at  his  acceptance  of 
me  there  in  the  flesh. 

We  rode  around  the  end  of  this  slope,  gradually  working 
down  into  Horton  Thicket,  where  a  wild  confusion  of 
dense  timber  engaged  my  sight.  Presently  George 
trotted  up  behind  us  with  the  other  dogs.  ' '  We  lost  him 
dov/n  on  the  hot  dry  ridges.  Hounds  couldn't  track 
him,"  was  all  George  said.  Thereupon  Edd  blew  four 
blasts  upon  his  hunting-horn,  which  were  signals  to  those 
on  the  stands  above  that  the  hunt  was  over  for  the  day. 

Even  in  the  jungle  tropics  I  had  never  seen  such  dense 
shade  as  this  down  in  Horton  Thicket.  The  timber  grew 
close  and  large,  and  the  foliage  was  matted,  letting  little 
sunlight  through.  Dark,  green  and  brown,  fragrant,  cool 
thicket  indeed  it  was.  We  came  to  a  huge  spruce  tree, 
the  largest  I  ever  saw — Edd  said  eight  feet  through  at 
the  base,  but  he  was  conservative.  It  was  a  gnarled, 
bearded,  gray,  old  monarch  of  the  forest,  with  bleached, 
dead  top.  For  many  years  it  had  been  the  home  of 
swarms  of  wild  honey  bees.  Edd  said  more  than  one 
bee-hunter  had  undertaken  to  cut  down  this  spruce. 
This  explained  a  number  of  deeply  cut  notches  in  the 
huge  trunk.  "I'll  bet  Nielsen  could  chop  it  down," 
declared  Edd.  I  admitted  the  compliment  to  our  brawny 
Norwegian  axe-wielder,  but  added  that  I  certainly  would 
not  let  him  do  it,  whether  we  were  to  get  any  honey  or  not. 

By  and  bye  we  reached  the  bottom  of  the  thicket  where 
we  crossed  a  swift  clear  cold  brook.  Here  the  smells 
seemed  cool,  sweet,  wild  with  spruce  and  pine.  This 
stream  of  granite  water  burst  from  a  spring  under  a  cliff. 
What  a  roar  it  made!     I  drank  untU  I  could  drink  no 


224  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

more.  Huge  boulders  and  windfalls,  moved  b}''  water 
at  flood  season,  obstructed  the  narrow  stream-bed.  We 
crossed  to  start  climbing  the  north  slope,  and  soon 
worked  up  out  of  the  thicket  upon  a  steep,  rocky  slope, 
with  isolated  pines.  We  struck  a  deer-trail  hard  to 
follow.  Above  me  loomed  the  pine-tipped  rim,  with  its 
crags,  cliffs,  pinnacles,  and  walls,  all  gray,  seamed  and 
stained,  and  in  some  clefts  blazes  of  deep  red  and  yellow 
foliage. 

When  we  surm.ounted  the  slope,  and  eventually  reached 
camp,  I  found  Isbel  entertaining  strangers,  men  of  rough 
garb,  evidently  riders  of  the  range.  That  was  all  right, 
but  I  did  not  lilvc  his  prodigality  with  our  swiftly  dimin- 
ishing store  of  eatables. 

To  conclude  about  Isbel — matters  pertaining  to  our 
commissary  department,  during  the  next  few  days,  went 
from  bad  to  worse.  Doyle  advised  me  not  to  take  Isbel 
to  task,  and  was  rather  evasive  of  reasons  for  so  advising 
me.  Of  course  I  listened  and  attended  to  my  old  guide's 
advice,  but  I  fretted  under  the  restraint.  We  had  a 
spell  of  bad  weather,  wind  and  rain,  and  hail  off  and  on, 
and  at  length,  the  third  day,  a  cold  drizzling  snow. 
During  this  spell  we  did  but  little  hunting.  The 
weather  changed,  and  the  day  afterward  I  rode  my  mean 
horse  twenty  miles  on  a  deer  hunt.  We  saw  one  buck. 
Upon  our  arrival  at  camp,  about  four  o'clock,  which  hour 
was  too  early  for  dinner,  I  was  surprised  and  angered  to 
find  Isbel  eating  an  elaborate  meal  with  three  more 
strange,  rough-appearing  men.  Doyle  looked  serious. 
Nielsen  had  a  sharp  glint  in  his  gray  eye.  As  for  myself, 
this  procedure  of  our  cook's  was  more  than  I  could  stand. 

"Isbel,  you're  discharged,"  I  said,  shortly.  "Take 
your  outfit  and  get  out.     Lee  will  lend  you  a  pack  horse. " 

"Wal,  I  ain't  fired,"  drawled  Isbel  "I  quit  before 
you  rode  in.     Beat  you  to  it ! " 


TONTO  BASIN  225 

"Then  if  you  quit  it  seems  to  me  you  are  taking 
liberties  with  supplies  you  have  no  right  to,"  I  replied. 

* '  Nope.  Cook  of  any  outfit  has  a  right  to  all  the  chuck 
he  wants.     That's  western  way." 

"Isbel,  listen  to  this  and  then  get  out,"  I  went  on. 
"You've  wasted  our  supplies  just  to  get  us  to  hurry  and 
break  camp.  As  for  western  ways  I  know  something  of 
them.  It's  a  western  way  for  a  man  to  be  square  and 
honest  in  his  dealings  with  an  outsider.  In  all  my  years 
and  in  all  my  trips  over  the  southwest  you  are  the  first 
westerner  to  give  me  the  double-cross.  You  have  that 
distinction." 

Then  I  turned  my  back  upon  him  and  walked  to  my 
tent.  His  acquaintances  left  at  once,  and  he  quickly 
packed  and  followed.  Faithful  old  Doyle  took  up  the 
duties  of  cook  and  we  gained,  rather  than  missed  by  the 
change.  Our  supplies,  however,  had  been  so  depleted 
that  w^e  could  not  stay  much  longer  on  the  hunt. 

By  dint  of  much  determination  as  to  the  manner  and 
method  of  my  next  hunt  I  managed  to  persuade  myself 
that  I  could  make  the  best  of  this  unlucky  sojourn  in  the 
woods.  No  rifle,  no  horse  worth  riding,  no  food  to  stay 
out  our  time — it  was  indeed  bad  luck  for  me.  After 
supper  the  tension  relaxed.  Then  I  realized  all  the  men 
were  relieved.  Only  Romer  regretted  loss  of  Isbel. 
When  the  Doyles  and  Haughts  saw  how  I  took  my  hard 
luck  they  seemed  all  the  keener  to  make  my  stay  pleasant 
and  profitable.  Little  they  knew  that  their  regard  was 
more  to  me  than  material  benefits  and  comforts  of  the 
trip.  To  travelers  of  the  desert  and  hunters  and  riders 
of  the  open  there  are  always  hard  and  uncomfortable  and 
painful  situations  to  be  met  with.  And  in  meeting  these, 
if  it  can  be  done  with  fortitude  and  spirit  that  win  the 
respect  of  westerners,  it  is  indeed  a  reward. 

Next  day,  in  defiance  of  a  thing  which  never  should  be 


226  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

considered — luck — I  took  Haught's  rifle  again,  and  my 
lazy,  sullen,  intractable  horse,  and  rode  with  Edd  and 
George  down  into  Horton  Thicket.  At  least  I  could  not 
be  cheated  out  of  fresh  air  and  beautiful  scenery. 

We  dismounted  and  tied  our  horses  at  the  brook,  and 
while  Edd  took  the  hounds  up  into  the  dense  thicket 
where  the  bears  made  their  beds,  George  and  I  followed 
a  trail  up  the  brook.  In  exactly  ten  minutes  the  hounds 
gave  tongue.  They  ran  up  the  thicket,  which  was  favor- 
able for  us,  and  from  their  baying  I  judged  the  bear  trail 
to  be  warm.  In  the  dense  forest  we  could  not  see  five 
rods  ahead.  George  averred  that  he  did  not  care  to  have 
a  big  cinnamon  or  a  grizzly  come  running  down  that 
black  thicket.  And  as  for  myself  I  did  not  want  one  so 
very  exceediiigly  much.  I  tried  to  keep  from  letting  the 
hounds  excite  me,  which  effort  utterly  failed.  We  kept 
even  with  the  hounds  until  their  baying  fell  off,  and 
finally  grew  desultory,  and  then  ceased.  "Guess  they 
had  the  wrong  end  of  his  trail,"  said  George.  With  this 
exasperating  feature  of  bear  and  lion  chases  I  was 
familiar.  Most  hounds,  when  they  struck  a  trail,  could 
not  tell  in  which  direction  the  bear  was  traveling.  A 
really  fine  hound,  however,  like  Buffalo  Jones'  famous 
Don,  or  Scott  Teague's  Sampson  or  Haught's  Old  Dan, 
would  grow  suspicious  of  a  scent  that  gradually  cooled, 
and  would  eventually  give  it  up.  Young  hounds  would 
back-track  game  as  far  as  possible. 

After  waiting  a  while  we  returned  to  our  horses,  and 
presently  Edd  came  back  with  the  pack.  "Big  bear, 
but  cold  trail.  Called  them  off,"  was  all  he  said.  We 
mounted  and  rode  across  the  mouth  of  Horton  Thicket 
round  to  the  juniper  slopes,  which  I  had  occasion  to 
remember.  I  even  saw  the  pine  tree  which  I  had  so 
ignominiously  climbed.  How  we  ridicule  and  scorn  some 
of  our  perfectly  natural  actions — afterwards!     Edd  had 


TONTO  BASIN  227 

brought  three  of  the  pups  that  day,  two-year-olds  as  full 
of  mischief  as  pups  could  be.  They  jumped  a  bunch  of 
deer  and  chased  them  out  on  the  hard  red  cedar  covered 
ridges.  We  had  a  merry  chase  to  head  them  off.  Edd 
gave  them  a  tongue-lashing  and  thrashing  at  one  and  the 
same  tim^e.  I  felt  sorry  for  the  pups.  They  had  been 
so  full  of  frolic  and  fight.  How  crestfallen  they  appeared 
after  Edd  got  through !  "  Whaddaye  mean,"  yelled  Edd, 
in  conclusion.  "Chasin' deer!  .  .  .  Do  you  think  you're 
a  lot  of  rabbit  dogs  ? "  From  the  way  the  pups  eyed  Edd 
so  sheepishly  and  adoringly,  I  made  certain  they  under- 
stood him  perfectly,  and  humbly  confessed  their  error. 

Old  Tom  and  Old  Dan  had  not  come  down  off  the 
slopes  with  us  after  the  pups.  And  upon  our  return  both 
the  old  hounds  began  to  bay  deep  and  fast.  With  shrill 
ki-yi  the  pups  bounded  off,  apparently  frantic  to  make 
up  for  misbehavior.  Soon  the  whole  pack  was  in  full 
chorus.  Edd  and  George  spurred  into  the  brush,  yelling 
encouragement  to  the  hounds.  This  day  I  managed  to 
make  my  horse  do  a  little  of  what  I  wanted.  To  keep 
in  sight  of  the  Haught  boys  was  indeed  beyond  me ;  but 
I  did  not  lose  sound  of  them.  This  chase  led  us  up  slope 
and  down  slope,  through  the  brush  and  pine  thickets, 
over  bare  ridges  and  into  gullies ;  and  eventually  out  into 
the  basin,  where  the  hounds  got  beyond  hearing. 

"One  of  them  long,  lean,  hungry  bears,"  remarked 
Edd.     "He'd  outrun  any  dogs." 

Leisurely  then  we  turned  to  the  three-hour  ride  back  to 
camp.  Hot  sun  in  the  open,  cool  wind  in  the  shade,  dry 
smells  of  the  forest,  green  and  red  and  orange  and  purple 
of  the  foliage — these  rendered  the  hours  pleasant  for  me. 
When  I  reached  camp  I  found  Romer  in  trouble.  He 
had  cut  his  hand  with  a  forbidden  hunting  knife.  As  he 
told  me  about  it  his  face  was  a  study  and  his  explanation 
was  astounding.     When  he  finished  I  said :   "You  mean 


228  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

then  that  my  hunting  knife  walked  out  of  its  sheath  off 
my  belt  and  followed  you  around  and  cut  you  of  its  own 
accord?" 

' '  Aw,  I— I— it— ' '  he  floundered. 

Whereupon  I  lectured  him  about  forbidden  things  and 
untruthfulness.  His  reply  was:  "But,  Dad,  it  hurts 
like  sixty.     Won't  you  put  somethin'  on  it?" 

I  dressed  and  bandaged  the  trifling  cut  for  him,  telling 
him  the  while  how  little  Indian  boys,  when  cut  or  kicked 
or  bruised,  never  showed  that  they  were  hurt.  "Huh!" 
he  grunted.  "Guess  there's  no  Indian  in  me.  ...  I 
must  take  after  mother!" 

That  afternoon  and  night  the  hounds  straggled  in.  Old 
Tom  and  Dan  first,  and  then  the  others,  one  by  one, 
fagged-out  and  foot-sore.  Next  morning,  however,  they 
appeared  none  the  worse  for  their  long  chase.  We  went 
again  to  Horton  Thicket  to  rout  out  a  bear. 

This  time  I  remained  on  top  of  the  rim  with  R.  C.  and 
Nielsen;  and  we  took  up  a  stand  across  the  canyon,  near 
where  my  first  stand  had  been.  Here  we  idled  the  hours 
away  waiting  for  the  hounds  to  start  something.  While 
walking  along  the  rim  I  happened  to  look  across  the  big 
cove  that  cut  into  the  promontory,  and  way  on  the  other 
slope  what  did  I  espy  but  a  black  bear.  He  appeared  to 
be  very  small,  or  merely  a  cub.  Running  back  to  R.  C. 
and  Nielsen  I  told  them,  and  we  all  took  up  our  rifles. 
It  occurred  to  me  that  the  distance  across  this  cove  was 
too  far  for  accurate  shooting,  but  it  never  occurred  to  me 
to  jump  on  my  horse  and  ride  around  the  head  of  the 
cove. 

"He's  not  scared.     Let's  watch  him,"  suggested  R.  C. 

We  saw  this  bear  walk  along,  poke  around,  dig  into  the 
ground,  go  behind  trees,  come  out  again,  and  finally  stand 
up  on  his  hind  feet  and  apparently  reach  for  berries  or 
something  on  a  bush.     R.  C.  bethought  himself  of  his 


WILD    TURKEYS 


f'i^,/ 


.^j^f^^r 


THIC    WHITE    QUAKING    ASPS 


TONTO  BASIN  229 

field-glass.  After  one  look  he  exclaimed:  "Say,  fellows, 
he's  a  whopper  of  a  bear!  He'll  weigh  five  hundred 
pounds.     Just  take  a  look  at  him ! " 

My  turn  with  the  glasses  revealed  to  me  that  what  I 
had  imagined  to  be  a  cub  was  indeed  a  big  bear.  After 
Nielsen  looked  he  said : ' '  Never  saw  one  so  big  in  Norway. '  * 

"Well,  look  at  that  black  scoundrel!"  exclaimed  R.  C. 
"Standing  up!  Looking  around!  Wagging  his  head! 
.  .  .  Say,  you  saw  him  first.  Suppose  you  take  some 
pegs  at  him." 

"Wish  Romer  were  here.  I'd, let  him  shoot  at  that 
bear,"  I  replied.  Then  I  got  down  on  my  knee,  and 
aiming  as  closely  as  possible  I  fired.  The  report  rang 
out  in  the  stillness,  making  hollow  echoes.  We  heard 
the  bullet  pat  somewhere.  So  did  the  bear  hear  it. 
Curiously  he  looked  around,  as  if  something  had  struck 
near  him.  But  scared  he  certainly  was  not.  Then  I 
shot  four  times  in  quick  succession. 

"Well,  I'll  be  darned!"  ejaculated  R.  C.  "He  heard 
the  bullets  hit  and  wonders  what  the  dickens.  .  .  .  Say, 
now  he  hears  the  reports !     Look  at  him  stand ! " 

"Boys,  smoke  him  up,"  I  said,  after  the  manner  of 
Haught's  vernacular.  So  while  I  reloaded  R.  C.  and 
Nielsen  began  to  shoot.  We  had  more  fun  out  of  it  than 
the  bear.  Evidently  he  located  us.  Then  he  began  to 
run,  choosing  the  open  slope  by  which  he  had  come.  I 
got  five  more  shots  at  him  as  he  crossed  this  space,  and 
the  last  bullet  puffed  up  dust  under  him,  making  him 
take  a  header  down  the  slope  into  the  thicket.  Where- 
upon we  all  had  a  good  laugh.  Nielsen  appeared  par- 
ticularly pleased  over  his  first  shots  at  a  real  live  bear. 

"Say,  why  didn't  you  think  to  ride  round  there?" 

queried  R.  C.  thoughtfully.     "He  didn't  see  us.     He 

wasn't  scared.     In  a  few  minutes  you  could  have  been 

on  the  rim  of  that  slope  right  over  him.    Got  him  sure ! " 
16 


230  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

"R.  C.  why  didn't  you  think  to  tell  me  to  do  that?" 
I  retorted.  "Why  don't  we  ever  think  the  right  thing 
before  it  is  too  late?" 

"That's  our  last  chance  this  year — I  feel  it  in  my 
bones,"  declared  R.  C.  mournfully. 

His  premonition  turned  out  to  be  correct.  Upon  our 
arrival  at  camp  we  heard  some  very  disquieting  news. 
A  neighbor  of  Haught's  had  taken  the  trouble  to  ride  up 
to  inform  us  about  the  epidemic  of  influenza.  The 
strange  disease  was  all  over  the  country,  in  the  cities,  the 
villages,  the  cow-camps,  the  mines — everywhere.  At 
first  I  thought  Haught's  informant  was  exaggerating  a 
mere  rumor.  But  when  he  told  of  the  Indians  dying  on 
the  reservations,  and  that  in  Flagstaff  eighty  people  had 
succumbed  in  a  few  weeks — then  I  was  thoroughly 
alarmed.  Imperative  was  it  indeed  for  me  to  make  a 
decision  at  once.  I  made  it  instantly.  We  would  break 
camp.  So  I  told  the  men.  Doyle  was  relieved  and  glad. 
He  wanted  to  get  home  to  his  family.  The  Haughts, 
naturally,  were  sorry.  My  decision  once  arrived  at,  the 
next  thing  was  to  consider  which  way  to  travel.  The 
long  ten-day  trip  down  into  the  basin,  round  by  Payson, 
and  up  on  the  rim  again,  and  so  on  to  Flagstaff  was  not 
to  be  considered  at  all.  The  roads  by  way  of  Winslow 
and  Holbrook  w^ere  long  and  bad.  Doyle  wanted  to  at- 
tempt the  old  army  road  along  the  rim  made  by  General 
Crook  when  he  moved  the  captured  Apaches  to  the  reser- 
vation assigned  to  them.  No  travel  over  this  road  for 
many  years!  Haught  looked  dubious,  but  finally  said 
we  could  chop  our  way  through  thickets,  and  haul  the 
wagon  empty  up  bad  hills.  The  matter  of  decision  was 
left  to  me.  Decisions  of  such  nature  were  not  easy  to, 
make.  The  responsibility  was  great,  but  as  the  hunt  had 
been  for  me  it  seemed  incumbent  upon  me  to  accept 
responsibility.     What  made  me  hesitate  at  all  was  the 


TONTO  BASIN  231 

fact  that  I  had  ridden  five  miles  or  more  along  the  old 
Crook  road.  I  remembered.  I  told  Lee  and  I  told 
Nielsen  that  we  would  find  it  tough  going.  Lee  laughed 
like  a  cowboy:  "We'll  go  a-hummin',"  he  said.  Nielsen 
shrugged  his  brawny  shoulders.  What  were  obstacles 
to  this  man  of  the  desert?  I  realized  that  his  look  had 
decided  me. 

"All  right,  men,  we'll  try  the  old  Crook  road,"  I  said. 
"Pack  what  you  can  up  to  the  wagon  to-day,  and 
to-morrow  early  we'll  break  camp." 

I  walked  with  the  Haughts  from  our  camp  across  the 
brook  to  theirs,  where  we  sat  down  in  the  warm  sunshine. 
I  made  light  of  this  hunting  trip  in  which  it  had  turned 
out  I  had  no  gun,  no  horse,  no  blankets,  no  rain-proof  tent, 
no  adequate  amount  of  food  supplies,  and  no  good  luck, 
except  the  wonderful  good  luck  of  being  well,  of  seeing  a 
magnificent  country,  of  meeting  some  more  fine  western- 
ers. But  the  Haughts  appeared  a  little  slow  to  grasp,  or 
at  least  to  credit  my  philosophy.  We  were  just  begin- 
ning to  get  acquainted.  Their  regret  was  that  they  had 
been  unable  to  see  me  get  a  bear,  a  deer,  a  lion,  and  some 
turkeys.  Their  conviction,  perhaps  formed  from  asso- 
ciation with  many  sportsman  hunters,  was  that  owing  to 
my  bad  luck  I  could  not  and  would  not  want  to  come 
again. 

"See  here,  Haught,"  I  said.  "I've  had  a  fine  time. 
Now  forget  about  this  hunt.  It's  past.  We'll  plan 
another.     Will  you  save  next  fall  for  me?" 

"I  shore  will,"  he  replied. 

"Very  well,  then,  it's  settled.  Say  by  August  you  and 
the  boys  cut  a  trail  or  two  in  and  out  of  Horton  Thicket. 
I'll  send  you  money  in  advance  to  pay  for  this  work,  and 
get  new  hounds  and  outfit.  I'll  leave  Flagstaff  on  Sep- 
tember fifteenth.  Meet  you  here  September  twenty- 
first,  along  about  noon." 


232  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

We  shook  hands  upon  the  deaL  It  pleased  me  that 
the  Haughts  laughed  at  me  yet  appeared  both  surprised 
and  happy.  As  I  left  I  heard  Edd  remark:  "Not  a 
kick!  .  .  .  Meet  him  next  year  at  noon!  What  do  you 
know  about  thet?"  This  remark  proved  that  he  had 
paid  me  a  compliment  in  eastern  slang  most  likely  assimi- 
lated from  R,  C.  and  Romer. 

The  rest  of  the  afternoon  our  camp  resembled  a  bee- 
hive, and  next  morning  it  was  more  lilce  a  bedlam.  The 
horses  were  fresh,  spirited,  and  they  had  tender  backs; 
the  burros  stampeded  because  of  some  surreptitious  trick 
of  Romer's.  But  by  noon  we  had  all  the  outfit  packed 
in  the  wagon.  Considering  the  amount  of  stuff,  and  the 
long,  rough  climb  up  to  the  wagon,  this  was  a  most  auspi- 
cious start.  I  hoped  that  it  augured  well  for  us,  but 
while  I  hoped  I  had  a  gloomy  foreboding.  We  bade 
good-bye  to  Haught  and  his  son  George.  Edd  offered 
to  go  with  us  as  far  as  he  knew  the  country,  which 
distance  was  not  many  miles.  So  we  set  out  upon  our 
doubtful  journey,  our  saddle-horses  in  front  of  the 
lumbering  wagon. 

We  had  five  miles  of  fairly  level  road  through  open 
forest  along  the  rim,  and  then  we  struck  such  a  rocky 
jumble  of  downhill  grade  that  the  bundles  fell  off  the 
wagon.  They  had  to  be  tied  on.  When  we  came  to  a 
long  slow  slant  uphill,  a  road  of  loose  rocks,  we  made 
about  one  mile  an  hour.  This  slow  travel  worked  havoc 
upon  my  mind.  I  wanted  to  hurry.  I  wanted  to  get 
out  of  the  wilds.  That  awful  rumor  about  influenza 
occupied  my  mind  and  struck  cold  fear  into  my  heart. 
What  of  my  family?  No  making  the  best  of  this! 
Slowly  we  toiled  on.  Sunset  overtook  us  at  a  rocky 
ledge  which  had  to  be  surmounted.  With  lassos  on 
saddle  horses  in  front  of  the  two  teams,  all  pulling  hard, 
we  overcame  that  obstacle.     But  at  the  next  little  hill, 


TONTO  BASIN  233 

which  we  encountered  about  twilight,  one  of  the  team 
horses  balked.  Urging  him,  whipping  him,  served  no 
purpose;  and  it  had  bad  effect  upon  the  other  horses. 
Darkness  was  upon  us  with  the  camp-site  Edd  knew  of 
still  miles  to  the  fore.  No  grass,  no  water  for  the  horses ! 
But  we  had  to  camp  there.  All  hands  set  to  work.  It 
really  was  fun — it  should  have  been  fine  for  me — but  my 
gloomy  obsession  to  hurry  obscured  my  mind.  I  mar- 
veled at  old  Doyle,  over  seventy,  after  that  long,  hard 
day,  quickly  and  efficiently  cooking  a  good  hot  supper. 
Romer  had  enjoyed  the  day.  He  said  he  was  tired,  but 
would  like  to  stay  up  beside  the  mighty  camp-fire 
Nielsen  built.  I  had  neither  energy  or  spirit  to  oppose 
him.  The  night  was  dark  and  cold  and  windy;  the  fire 
felt  so  good  that  I  almost  went  asleep  beside  it.  We  had 
no  time  to  put  up  tents.  I  made  our  bed,  crawled  into 
it,  stretched  out  with  infinite  relief;  and  the  last  thing  I 
was  aware  of  was  Romer  snuggling  in  beside  me. 

Morning  brought  an  early  bestirring  of  every  one. 
We  had  to  stir  to  get  warm.  The  air  nipped  like  cold 
pincers.  All  the  horses  were  gone;  we  could  not  hear  a 
bell.  But  Lee  did  not  appear  worried.  I  groaned  in 
spirit.  More  delay!  Gloom  assailed  me.  Lee  sallied 
out  with  his  yellow  dog  Pups.  I  had  forgotten  the  good 
quality  of  Pups,  but  not  my  dislike  for  him.  He  barked 
vociferously,  and  that  annoyed  me.  R.  C.  and  I  helped 
Edd  and  Nielsen  pack  the  wagon.  We  worked  quick 
and  hard.  Then  Doyle  called  us  to  breakfast.  We  had 
scarcely  started  to  eat  when  we  heard  a  jangle  of  bells 
and  the  pound  of  hoofs.  I  could  not  believe  my  ears. 
Our  horses  were  lost.  Nevertheless  suddenly  they  ap- 
peared, driven  by  Lee  riding  bareback,  and  Pups  barking 
his  head  off.  We  all  jumped  up  with  ropes  and  nose-bags 
to  head  off  the  horses,  and  soon  had  them  secured.  Not 
one  missing !     I  asked  Lee  how  in  the  world  he  had  found 


234  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

that  wild  bunch  in  less  than  an  hour.  Lee  laughed. 
"Pups.     He  rounded  them  up  in  no  time." 

Then  I  wanted  to  go  away  and  hide  behind  a  thicket 
and  kick  myself,  but  what  I  actually  did  was  to  give 
Pups  part  of  my  meat.  I  reproached  myself  for  my 
injustice  to  him.  How  often  had  I  been  deceived  in  the 
surface  appearance  of  people  and  things  and  dogs !  Most 
of  our  judgments  are  wrong.     We  do  not  see  clearly. 

By  nine  o'clock  we  were  meeting  our  first  obstacle — 
the  little  hill  at  which  the  sorrel  horse  had  balked.  Lo ! 
rested  and  full  of  grain,  he  balked  again !  He  ruined  our 
start.  He  spoiled  the  teams.  Lee  had  more  patience 
than  I  would  have  had.  He  unhitched  the  lead  team 
and  in  place  of  the  sorrel  put  a  saddle  horse  called  Pacer. 
Then  Doyle  tried  again  and  surmounted  the  hill.  Our 
saddle  horses  slowly  worked  ahead  over  as  rocky  and 
rough  a  road  as  I  ever  traveled.  Most  of  the  time  we 
could  see  over  the  rim  down  into  the  basin.  Along  here 
the  rim  appeared  to  wave  in  gentle  swells,  heavily 
timbered  and  thicldy  rock-strewn,  with  heads  of  canyons 
opening  down  to  our  right.  I  saw  deer  tracks  and 
turkey  tracks,  neither  of  which  occasioned  me  any 
thrills  now.  About  the  middle  of  the  afternoon  Edd 
bade  us  farewell  and  turned  back.  We  were  sorry  to 
see  him  go,  but  as  all  the  country  ahead  of  us  was  as 
unfamiliar  to  him  as  to  us  there  seemed  to  be  no  urgent 
need  of  him. 

We  encountered  a  long,  steep  hill  up  which  the  teams, 
and  our  saddle  horses  combined,  could  not  pull  the  wagon. 
We  unpacked  it,  and  each  of  us,  Romer  included,  loaded 
a  bundle  or  box  in  front  of  his  saddle,  and  took  it  up  the 
hill.  Then  the  teams  managed  the  wagon.  This  inci- 
dent happened  four  times  in  less  than  as  many  miles. 
The  team  horses,  having  had  a  rest  from  hard  labor,  had 
softened,  and  this  sudden  return  to  strenuous  pulling 


TONTO  BASIN  235 

had  made  their  shoulders  sore.  They  either  could  not 
or  would  not  pull.  We  covered  less  than  ten  miles  that 
day,  a  very  discouraging  circumstance.  We  camped  in 
a  pine  grove  close  to  the  rim,  a  splendid  site  that  under 
favorable  circumstances  would  have  been  enjoyable.  At 
sunset  R.  C.  and  Nielsen  and  Romer  saw  a  black  bear 
down  under  the  rim.  The  incident  was  so  wonderful  for 
Romer  that  it  brightened  my  spirits.  "A  bear!  A  big 
bear.  Dad!  ...  I  saw  him!  He  was  alive!  He  stood 
up — like  this — wagging  his  head.     Oh!     I  saw  him!" 

Our  next  day's  progress  was  no  less  than  a  nightmare. 
Crawling  along,  unpacking  and  carrying,  and  packing 
again,  we  toiled  up  and  down  the  interminable  length  of 
three  almost  impassable  miles.,  When  night  overtook  us 
it  was  in  a  bad  place  to  camp.  No  grass,  no  water !  A 
cold  gale  blew  out  of  the  west. ,  It  roared  through  the 
forest.  It  blew  everything  loose  away  in  the  darkness. 
It  almost  blew  us  away  in  our  beds.  The  stars  appeared 
radiantly  coldly  white  up  in  the  vast  blue  windy  vault 
of  the  sky.  A  full  moon  soared  majestically.  Shadows 
crossed  the  weird  moon-blanched  forest  glades. 

At  daylight  we  were  all  up,  cramped,  stiff,  half  frozen, 
mostly  silent.  The  water  left  in  the  buckets  was  solid 
ice.  Suddenly  some  one  discovered  that  Nielsen  was 
missing.  The  fact  filled  me  with  consternation  and 
alarm.  He  might  have  walked  in  his  sleep  and  fallen 
over  the  rim.  What  had  become  of  him  ?  All  his  outfit 
lay  scattered  round  in  his  bed.  In  my  bewilderment  I 
imagined  many  things,  even  to  the  extreme  that  he  might 
have  left  us  in  the  lurch.  But  when  I  got  to  that  sad 
pass  of  mind  I  suddenly  awakened  as  if  out  of  an  evil 
dream.  My  worry,  my  hurry  had  obsessed  me.  High 
time  indeed  was  it  for  me  to  meet  this  situation  as  I  had 
met  other  difficult  ones.  To  this  end  I  went  out  away 
from  camp,  and  forgot  myself,  my  imagined  possibilities, 


236  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

and  thought  of  my  present  responsibility,  and  the  issue 
at  hand.  That  instant  I  reaUzed  my  injustice  toward 
Nielsen,  and  reproached  myself. 

Upon  my  return  to  camp  Nielsen  was  there,  warming 
one  hand  over  the  camp-fire  and  holding  a  cup  of  coffee 
in  the  other. 

"Nielsen,  you  gave  us  a  scare.  Please  explain,"  I 
said. 

"Yes,  sir.  Last  night  I  was  worried.  I  couldn't 
sleep.  I  got  to  thinking  we  were  practically  lost.  Some 
one  ought  to  find  out  what  was  ahead  of  us.  So  I  got  up 
and  followed  the  road.  Bright  moonlight.  I  walked  all 
the  rest  of  the  night.     And  that's  all,  sir." 

I  liked  Nielsen's  looks  then.  He  reminded  me  of  Jim 
Emett,  the  Mormon  giant  to  whom  difficulties  and  ob- 
stacles were  but  spurs  to  achievement.  Such  men. could 
not  be  defeated. 

"Well,  what  did  you  find  out?"  I  inquired. 

"Change  of  conditions,  sir,"  he  replied,  as  a  mate 
to  his  captain.  "Only  one  more  steep  hill  so  far  as  I 
went.  But  we'll  have  to  cut  through  thickets  and  logs. 
From  here  on  the  road  is  all  grown  over.  About  ten 
miles  west  we  turn  off  the  rim  down  a  ridge." 

That  about  the  turning-off  place  w^as  indeed  good  news. 
I  thanked  Nielsen.  And  Doyle  appeared  immensely 
relieved.  The  packing  and  carrying  had  begun  to  tell 
on  us.  Pups  ingratiated  himself  into  my  affections.  He 
found  out  that  he  could  coax  meat  and  biscuit  from  me. 
We  had  three  axes  and  a  hatchet;  and  these  we  did  not 
pack  in  the  wagon.  When  Doyle  finally  got  the  teams 
started  Lee  and  Nielsen  and  R.  C.  and  I  went  ahead  to 
clear  the  road.  Soon  we  were  halted  by  thickets  of 
pines,  some  of  which  were  six  inches  in  diameter  at  the 
base.  The  road  had  ceased  to  be  roclcy,  and  that,  no 
doubt,  was  the  reason  pine  thickets  had  grown  up  on  it, 


TONTO  BASIN  237 

The  wagon  kept  right  at  our  heels,  and  many  times  had 
to  wait.  We  cut  a  way  through  thickets,  tore  rotten  logs 
to  pieces,  threw  stumps  aside,  and  moved  windfalls. 
Brawny  Nielsen  seemed  ten  men  in  one !  What  a  swath 
he  hacked  with  his  big  axe !  When  I  rested,  which  cir- 
cumstance grew  oftener  and  oftener,  I  had  to  watch 
Nielsen  with  his  magnificent  swing  of  the  axe,  or  with 
his  mighty  heave  on  a  log.  Time  and  again  he  lifted 
tree  trunks  out  of  the  road.  He  sweat  till  he  was  wring- 
ing wet.  Neither  that  day  nor  the  next  would  we  have 
ever  gotten  far  along  that  stretch  of  thicketed  and  ob- 
structed road  had  it  not  been  for  Nielsen. 

At  sunset  we  found  ourselves  at  the  summit  of  a  long 
slowly  ascending  hill,  deeply  forested.  It  took  all  the 
horses  together  to  pull  the  wagon  to  the  top.  Thus  when 
we  started  down  a  steep  curve,  horses  and  men  both  were 
tired.  I  was  ahead  riding  beside  Romer.  Nielsen  and 
R.  C.  were  next,  and  Lee  had  fallen  in  behind  the  wagon. 
As  I  turned  the  sharp  curve  I  saw  not  fifty  feet  below 
me  a  huge  log  obstructing  the  road. 

' '  Look  out !     Stop ! "   I  yelled,  lookin  g  back. 

But  I  was  too  late.  The  horses  could  not  hold  back 
the  heavUy  laden  wagon,  and  they  broke  into  a  gallop. 
I  saw  Doyle's  face  turn  white — heard  him  yell.  Then 
I  spurred  my  horse  to  the  side.  Romer  was  slow  or 
frightened.  I  screamed  at  him  to  get  off  the  road.  My 
heart  sank  sick  within  me!  Surely  he  would  be  run 
down.  As  his  pony  Rye  jumped  out  of  the  way  the 
shoulder  of  the  black  horse,  on  the  off  side,  struck  him  a 
glancing  blow.  Then  the  big  team  hurdled  the  log,  the 
tongue  struck  with  a  crash,  the  wagon  stopped  with  a 
lurch,  and  Doyle  was  thrown  from  his  seat. 

Quick  as  a  flash  Nielsen  was  on  the  spot  beside  the 
team.  The  bay  horse  was  down.  The  black  horse  was 
trying  to  break  away.     Nielsen  cut  and  pulled  the  bay 


238  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

free  of  the  harness,  and  Lee  came  tearing  down  to  grasp 
and  hold  the  black. 

Like  a  fool  I  ran  around  trying  to  help  somehow,  but 
I  did  not  know  what  to  do.  I  smelled  and  then  saw 
blood,  which  fact  convinced  me  of  disaster.  Only  the 
black  horse  that  had  hurdled  the  log  made  any  effort  to 
tear  away.  The  other  lay  quiet.  When  finally  it  was 
extricated  we  found  that  the  horse  had  a  bad  cut  in  the 
breast  made  by  a  snag  on  the  log.  We  could  find  no 
damage  done  to  the  wagon.  The  harness  Nielsen  had 
cut  could  be  mended  quickly.  What  a  fortunate  out- 
come to  what  had  seemed  a  very  grave  accident !  I  was 
thanlvful  indeed.  But  not  soon  would  I  forget  sight  of 
Romer  in  front  of  that  plunging  wagon. 

With  the  horses  and  a  rope  we  hauled  the  log  to  one 
side  of  the  road,  and  hitching  up  again  we  proceeded  on 
our  way.  Once  I  dropped  back  and  asked  Doyle  if  he 
was  all  right,  "Fine  as  a  fiddle,"  he  shouted,  "This's 
play  to  what  we  teamsters  had  in  the  early  days,"  And 
verily  somehow  I  could  see  the  truth  of  that.  A  mile 
farther  on  we  made  camp;  and  all  of  us  were  hungry, 
weary,  and  quiet. 

Doyle  proved  a  remarkable  example  to  us  younger 
men.  Next  morning  he  crawled  out  before  any  one  else, 
and  his  call  was  cheery,  I  was  scarcely  able  to  get  out 
of  my  bed,  but  I  was  ashamed  to  lie  there  an  instant  after 
I  heard  Doyle,  Possibly  my  eyesight  was  dulled  by 
exhaustion  when  it  caused  me  to  see  myself  as  a  worn, 
unshaven,  wrinkled  wretch.  Romer-boy  did  not  hop 
out  with  his  usual  alacrity,  R.  C,  had  to  roll  over  in 
his  bed  and  get  up  on  all  fours. 

We  had  scant  rations  for  three  more  days.  It  be- 
hooved us  to  work  and  waste  not  an  hour.  All  morning, 
at  the  pace  of  a  snail  it  seemed,  we  chopped  and  lifted  and 
hauled  our  way  along  that  old  Crook  road.     Not  since 


TONTO  BASIN  239 

my  trip  down  the  Santa  Rosa  river  in  Mexico  had  I 
labored  so  strenuously. 

At  noon  we  came  to  the  tuming-off  junction,  an  old 
blazed  road  Doyle  had  some  vague  knowledge  of.  "It 
must  lead  to  Jones'  ranch,"  Doyle  kept  saying.  "Any- 
way, we've  got  to  take  it."  North  was  our  direction. 
And  to  our  surprise,  and  exceeding  gladness,  the  road 
down  this  ridge  proved  to  be  a  highway  compared  to 
what  we  had  passed.  In  the  open  forest  we  had  to  follow 
it  altogether  by  the  blazes  on  the  trees.  But  with  all  our 
eyes  alert  that  was  easy.  The  grade  was  down  hill,  so 
that  we  traveled  fast,  covering  four  miles  an  hour. 
Occasionally  a  log  or  thicket  halted  rapid  progress. 
Toward  the  end  of  the  afternoon  sheep  and  cattle  trails 
joined  the  now  well-defined  road,  and  we  knew  we  were 
approaching  a  ranch.  I  walked,  or  rather  limped  the 
last  mile,  for  the  very  good  reason  that  I  could  not  longer 
bear  the  trot  of  my  horse.  The  forest  grew  more  open, 
with  smaller  pines,  and  fewer  thickets.  At  sunset  I  came 
out  upon  the  brow  of  a  deep  barren -looking  canyon,  in 
the  middle  of  which  squatted  some  old  ruined  log-cabins. 
Deserted!  Alas  for  my  visions  of  a  cup  of  cold  milk. 
For  hours  they  had  haunted  me.  When  Doyle  saw  the 
broken-down  cabins  and  corrals  he  yelled:  "Boys,  it's 
Jones'  Ranch.  I've  been  here.  We're  only  three  miles 
from  Long  Valley  and  the  main  road!" 

Elated  we  certainly  were.  And  we  rushed  down  the 
steep  hill  to  look  for  water.  All  our  drinking  water  was 
gone,  and  the  horses  had  not  slaked  their  thirst  for  two 
days.  Separating  we  rode  up  and  down  the  canyon. 
R.  C.  and  Romer  found  running  water.  Thereupon 
with  immense  relief  and  joy  we  pitched  camp  near  the 
cabins,  forgetting  our  aches  and  pains  in  the  certainty  of 
deliverance. 

What  a  cold,  dismal,  bleak,  stony,  and  lonesome  place! 


240  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

We  unpacked  only  bedding,  and  our  little  store  of  food. 
And  huddled  around  the  camp-fire  we  waited  upon 
Doyle's  cooking.  The  old  pioneer  talked  while  he 
worked. 

"Jones'  ranch ! — I  knew  Jones  in  the  early  days.  And 
I've  heard  of  him  lately.  Thirty  years  ago  he  rode  a 
prairie  schooner  down  into  this  canyon.  He  had  his 
wife,  a  fine,  strong  girl,  and  he  had  a  gun,  an  axe,  some 
chuck,  a  few  horses  and  cattle,  and  not  much  else.  He 
built  him  that  cabin  there  and  began  the  real  old  pioneer- 
ing of  the  early  days.  He  raised  cattle.  He  freighted 
to  the  settlements  twice  a  year.  In  twenty -five  years  he 
had  three  strapping  boys  and  a  girl  just  as  strapping. 
And  he  had  a  fortune  in  cattle.  Then  he  sold  his  stock 
and  left  this  ranch.  He  wanted  to  give  his  faithful  wife 
and  his  children  some  of  the  comforts  and  luxuries  and 
advantages  of  civilization.  The  war  came.  His  sons 
did  not  wait  for  the  draft.  They  entered  the  army.  I 
heard  a  story  about  Abe  Jones,  the  old  man's  first  boy. 
Abe  was  a  quiet  sort  of  chap.  When  he  got  to  the  army 
training  camp  a  sergeant  asked  Abe  if  he  could  shoot. 
Abe  said:  'Nope,  not  much.'  So  they  gave  him  a  rifle 
and  told  him  to  shoot  at  the  near  target.  Abe  looked  at 
it  sort  of  funny  like  and  he  picked  out  the  farthest  target 
at  one  thousand  yards.  And  he  hit  the  bull's  eye  ten 
times  straight  running.  'Hey!'  gasped  the  vSergeant, 
'you  long,  lanky  galoot!  You  said  you  couldn't  shoot.' 
Abe  sort  of  laughed.  '  Reckon  I  was  thinkin'  about  what 
Dad  called  shootin'. '  .  .  .  Well,  Abe  and  his  brothers 
got  to  France  to  the  front.  Abe  was  a  sharpshooter. 
He  was  killed  at  Argonne.  Both  his  brothers  were 
wounded.  They're  over  there  yet  ...  I  met  a  man 
not  long  ago  who'd  seen  Jones  recently.  And  the  old 
pioneer  said  he  and  his  wife  would  like  to  be  back  home. 
And  home  to  them  means  right  here — Jones'  Ranch!" 


TONTO  BASIN  241 

Doyle's  story  affected  me  profoundly.  What  a  theme 
for  a  novel !  I  walked  away  from  the  camp-fire  into  the 
dark,  lonely,  melancholy  Arizona  night.  The  ruined 
cabins,  the  broken-down  corrals,  the  stone  fence,  the 
wash  where  water  ran  at  wet  season — all  had  subtly 
changed  for  me.  Leaning  in  the  doorway  of  the  one- 
room  cabin  that  had  been  home  for  these  Joneses  I  was 
stirred  to  my  depths.  Their  spirits  abided  in  that  lonely 
hut.  At  least  I  felt  something  there — something  strange, 
great,  simple,  inevitable,  tragic  as  life  itself.  Yet  what 
could  have  been  more  beautiful,  more  splendid  than  the 
life  of  Jones,  and  his  wife,  and  daughter,  and  sons, 
especially  Abe?  Abe  Jones!  The  name  haunted  me. 
In  one  clear  divining  flash  I  saw  the  life  of  the  lad.  I 
yearned  with  tremendous  passion  for  the  power  to  tell 
the  simplicity,  the  ruggedness,  the  pathos  and  the  glory 
of  his  story.  The  moan  of  wind  in  the  pines  seemed  a 
requiem  for  the  boy  who  had  prattled  and  romped  and 
played  under  them,  who  had  chopped  and  shot  and  rode 
under  them.  Into  his  manhood  had  gone  something  of 
their  strength  and  nature. 

We  sought  our  beds  early.  The  night  down  in  that 
deep,  open  canyon  was  the  coldest  we  had  experienced. 
I  slept  but  little.  At  dawn  all  was  hoar-white  with 
frost.  It  crackled  under  foot.  The  air  had  a  stinging 
bite.     Yet  how  sweet,  pure,  cold  to  breathe! 

Doyle's  cheery:  "Come  and  get  it,"  was  welcome  call 
to  breakfast.  Lee  and  Pups  drove  the  horses  into  one  of 
the  old  corrals.  In  an  hour,  while  the  frost  was  yet  hard 
and  white,  we  were  ready  to  start.  Then  Doyle  some- 
what chilled  our  hopes:  "Twenty  years  ago  there  was  a 
bad  road  out  of  here.     Maybe  one's  been  made  since." 

But  one  had  not  been  made.  A.nd  the  old  road  had 
not  been  used  for  years.  Right  at  the  outset  we  struck 
a  long,  steep,  winding,  rocky  road.    We  got  stalled  at  the 


242  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

very  foot  of  it.  More  toil!  Unloading  the  wagon  we 
packed  on  our  saddles  the  whole  load  more  than  a  mile 
up  this  last  and  crowning  obstacle.  Then  it  took  all  the 
horses  together  to  pull  the  empty  wagon  up  to-  a  level. 
By  that  time  sunset  had  overtaken  us.  Where  had  the 
hours  gone  ?  Nine  hours  to  go  one  mile !  But  there  had 
to  be  an  end  to  our  agonies.  By  twilight  we  trotted 
down  into  Long  Valley,  and  crossed  the  main  road  to 
camp  in  a  grove  we  remembered  well.  We  partook  of 
a  meagre  supper,  but  we  were  happy.  And  bed  that 
night  on  a  thick  layer  of  soft  pine  needles,  in  a  spot  pro- 
tected from  the  cold  wind,  was  immensely  comfortable. 

Lee  woke  the  crowd  next  morning.  "All  rustle,"  he 
yelled.  "Thirty-five  miles  to  Mormon  Lake.  Good 
road.     We'll  camp  there  to-night." 

How  strange  that  the  eagerness  to  get  home  now  could 
only  be  compared  to  the  wild  desire  for  the  woods  a  few 
weeks  back  1  We  made  an  early  start.  The  team  horses 
knew  that  road.  They  knew  they  were  now  on  the  way 
home.  What  difference  that  made !  Jaded  as  they  were 
they  trotted  along  with  a  briskness  never  seen  before  on 
that  trip.  It  began  to  be  a  job  for  us  to  keep  up  with 
Lee,  who  was  on  the  wagon.  Unless  a  rider  is  accus- 
tomed to  horseback  almost  all  of  the  time  a  continuous 
trot  on  a  hard  road  will  soon  stove  him  up.  My  horse 
had  an  atrocious  trot.  Time  and  again  I  had  to  fall 
behind  to  a  walk  and  then  lope  ahead  to  catch  up.  I 
welcomed  the  hills  that  necessitated  Lee  walking  the 
teams. 

At  noon  we  halted  in  a  grassy  grove  for  an  hour's  rest. 
That  seemed  a  precious  hour,  but  to  start  again  was 
painful.  I  noticed  that  Romer-boy  no  longer  rode  out 
far  in  front,  nor  did  he  chase  squirrels  with  Pups.  He 
sagged,  twisted  and  turned,  and  lolled  in  his  saddle. 
Thereafter  I  tried  to  keep  close  to  him.     But  that  was 


TONTO  BASIN  243 

not  easy,  for  he  suspected  me  of  seeing  how  tired  he  was, 
and  kept  away  from  me.  Thereafter  I  took  to  spying 
upon  him  from  some  distance  behind.  We  trotted  and 
walked,  trotted  and  walked  the  long  miles.  Arizona 
miles  were  twice  as  long  as  ordinary  properly  measured 
miles.  An  event  of  the  afternoon  was  to  meet  some 
Mexican  sheepherders,  driving  a  flock  south.  Nielsen 
got  some  fresh  mutton  from  them.  Toward  sunset  I 
caught  Romer  hanging  over  his  saddle.  Then  I  rode 
up  to  him.  "Son,  are  you  tired?"  I  asked.  "Oh,  Dad, 
I  sure  am,  but  I'm  going  to  ride  Rye  to  Mormon  Lake." 
I  believed  he  would  accomplish  it.  His  saddle  slipped, 
letting  him  down.  I  saw  him  fall.  When  he  made  no 
effort  to  get  up  I  was  frightened.  Rye  stood  perfectly 
still  over  him.  I  leaped  off  and  ran  to  the  lad.  He  had 
hit  his  head  on  a  stone,  drawing  the  blood,  and  appeared 
to  be  stunned.  I  lifted  him,  holding  him  up,  while 
somebody  got  some  water.  We  bathed  his  face  and 
washed  off  the  blood.  Presently  he  revived,  and  smiled 
at  me,  and  staggered  out  of  my  hold. 

"Helluva  note  that  saddle  slipped!"  he  complained. 
Manifestly  he  had  acquired  some  of  Joe  Isbel's  strong 
language.  Possibly  he  might  have  acquired  some  other 
of  the  cowboy's  traits,  for  he  asked  to  have  his  saddle 
straightened  and  to  be  put  on  his  horse.  I  had  mis- 
givings, but  I  could  not  resist  him  then.  I  lifted  him 
upon  Rye.     Once  more  our  cavalcade  got  under  way. 

Sunset,  twilight,  night  came  as  we  trotted  on  and  on. 
We  faced  a  cold  wind.  The  forest  was  black,  gloomy, 
full  of  shadows.  Lee  gave  us  all  we  could  do  to  keep  up 
with  him.  At  eight  o'clock,  two  hours  after  dark,  we 
reached  the  southern  end  of  Mormon  Lake.  A  gale, 
cold  as  ice,  blew  off  the  water  from  the  north.  Half  a 
dozen  huge  pine  trees  stood  on  the  only  level  ground  near 
at   hand.     "Nielsen,    fire — pronto!"    I    yelled.     "Aye, 


244  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

sir,"  he  shouted,  in  his  deep  voice.  Then  what  with 
hurry  and  bustle  to  get  my  bedding  and  packs,  and  to 
thresh  my  tingling  fingers,  and  press  my  frozen  ears,  I 
was  selfishly  busy  a  few  minutes  before  I  thought  of 
Romer. 

Nielsen  had  started  a  fire,  that  blazed  and  roared  with 
burning  pine  needles.  The  blaze  blew  low,  almost  on  a 
level  with  the  ground,  and  a  stream  of  red  sparks  flew 
off  into  the  woods.  I  was  afraid  of  forest  fire.  But  what 
a  welcome  sight  that  golden  flame !  It  lighted  up  a  wide 
space,  showing  the  huge  pines,  gloom-encircled,  and  a 
pale  glimmer  of  the  lake  beyond.  The  fragrance  of 
burning  pine  greeted  my  nostrils. 

Dragging  my  bags  I  hurried  toward  the  fire.  Nielsen 
was  building  a  barricade  of  rocks  to  block  the  flying 
sparks.  Suddenly  I  espied  Romer.  He  sat  on  a  log 
close  to  the  blaze.  His  position  struck  me  as  singular, 
so  I  dropped  my  burdens  and  went  to  him.  He  had  on  a 
heavy  coat  over  sweater  and  under  coat,  which  made  him 
resemble  a  little  old  man.  His  sombrero  was  slouched 
down  sidewise,  his  gloved  hands  were  folded  across  his 
knees,  his  body  sagged  a  little  to  one  side,  his  head 
drooped.  He  was  asleep.  I  got  around  so  I  could  see 
his  face  in  the  firelight.  Pale,  weary,  a  little  sad,  very 
youthful  and  yet  determined!  A  bloody  bruise  showed 
over  his  temple.  He  had  said  he  would  ride  all  the  way 
to  Mormon  Lake  and  he  had  done  it.  Never,  never  will 
that  picture  fade  from  my  memory !  Dear,  brave,  wild, 
little  lad !  He  had  made  for  me  a  magnificent  success  of 
this  fruitless  hunting  trip.  I  hoped  and  prayed  then  that 
when  he  grew  to  man's  estate,  and  faced  the  long  rides 
down  the  hard  roads  of  life,  he  would  meet  them  and 
achieve  them  as  he  had  the  weary  thirty-five  Arizona 
miles  from  Long  Valley  to  Mormon  Lake. 

Mutton  tasted  good  that  night  around  our  camp-fire; 


■  4^ 

4 

THE   SKUNK,   A  FREQUENT  AND   RATHER    DANGEROUS  VISITOR  IN   CAMP 


4 

*         /    ■ 

^K"' 

^  *^-^^'*'^^'  *  -"in 

^■' 

■'■^-    '^^''^ilS 

^^!*i*«^^'»^r 

ON   THE    RIM 


WHERE    ELK,    DEER,    AND     1  L  RKEV    DRINK 


TONTO  BASIN  245 

and  Romer  ate  a  generous  portion.  A  ranger  from  the 
station  near  there  visited  us,  and  two  young  ranchers, 
who  told  us  that  the  influenza  epidemic  was  waning. 
This  was  news  to  be  thankful  for.  Moreover,  I  hired  the 
two  ranchers  to  hurry  us  by  auto  to  Flagstaff  on  the 
morrow.  So  right  there  at  Mormon  Lake  ended  our 
privations. 

Under  one  of  the  huge  pines  I  scraped  up  a  pile  of 
needles,  made  Romer's  bed  in  it,  heated  a  blanket  and 
wrapped  him  in  it.  Almost  he  was  asleep  when  he  said: 
"Some  ride.  Dad — Good-night." 

Later,  beside  him,  I  lay  awake  a  while,  watching  the 
sparks  fly,  and  the  shadows  flit,  feeling  the  cold  wind  on 
my  face,  listening  to  the  crackle  of  the  fire  and  the  roar 
of  the  gale, 

IV 

Eventually  R.  C.  and  Romer  and  I  arrived  in  Los 
Angeles  to  find  all  well  with  our  people,  which  fact  was 
indeed  something  to  rejoice  over.  Hardly  had  this  1918 
trip  ended  before  I  began  to  plan  for  that  of  1919.  But 
I  did  not  realize  how  much  in  earnest  I  was  until  I 
received  word  that  both  Lee  Do^de  in  Flagstaff  and 
Nielsen  in  San  Pedro  were  very  ill  with  influenza.  Lee 
all  but  died,  and  Nielsen,  afterward,  told  me  he  would 
rather  die  than  have  the  "flu"  again.  To  my  great 
relief,  however,  they  recovered. 

From  that  time  then  it  pleased  me  to  begin  to  plan  for 
my  1919  hunting  trip.  I  can  never  do  anything  reason- 
ably. I  always  overdo  ever^^thing.  But  what  happiness 
I  derive  from  anticipation!  When  I  am  not  working  I 
live  in  dreams,  partly  of  the  past,  but  mostly  of  the 
future.     A  man  should  live  only  in  the  present. 

I  gave  Lee  instructions  to  go  about  in  his  own  way 
buying  teams,  saddle  horses,  and  wagons.  For  Christ- 
17 


246  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

mas  I  sent  him  a  .35  Remington  rifle.  Mr.  Haught  got 
instructions  to  add  some  new  dogs  to  his  pack.  I  sent 
Edd  also  a  .35  Remington,  and  made  Nielsen  presents  of 
two  guns.  In  January  Nielsen  and  I  went  to  Picacho, 
on  the  lower  Colorado  river,  and  then  north  to  Death 
Valley.  So  that  I  kept  in  touch  with  these  men  and  did 
not  allow  their  enthusiasm  to  wane.  For  myself  and 
R.  C.  I  had  the  fun  of  ordering  tents  and  woolen  blankets, 
and  everything  that  we  did  not  have  on  our  1918  trip. 
But  owing  to  the  war  it  was  difficult  to  obtain  goods  of 
any  description.  To  make  sure  of  getting  a  .30  Gov't 
Winchester  I  ordered  from  four  different  firms,  including 
the  Winchester  Co.  None  of  them  had  such  a  rifle  in 
stock,  but  all  would  try  to  find  one.  The  upshot  of  this 
deal  was  that,  when  after  months  I  despaired  of  getting 
any,  they  all  sent  me  a  rifle  at  the  same  time.  So  I  found 
myself  with  four,  all  the  same  caliber  of  course,  but  of 
different  style  and  finish.  When  I  saw  them  and  thought 
of  the  Haughts  I  had  to  laugh.  One  was  beautifully 
engraved,  and  inlaid  with  gold — the  most  elaborate 
.30  Gov't  the  Winchester  people  had  ever  built.  Another 
was  a  walnut-stocked,  shot-gun  butted,  fancy  checkered 
take-down.  This  one  I  presented  to  R.  C.  The  third 
was  a  plain  ordinary  rifle  with  solid  frame.  And  the  last 
was  a  carbine  model,  which  I  gave  to  Nielsen. 

During  the  summer  at  Avalon  I  used  to  take  the  solid 
frame  rifle,  and  climb  the  hills  to  practice  on  targets. 
At  Clemente  Island  I  used  to  shoot  at  the  ravens.  I  had 
a  grudge  against  ravens  there  for  picking  the  eyes  out 
of  newly  bom  lambs.  At  five  hundred  yards  a  raven 
was  in  danger  from  me.  I  could  make  one  jump  at 
even  a  thousand  yards.  These  .30  Gov't  1906  rifles 
with  150-grain  bullet  are  the  most  wonderful  shooting 
arms  I  ever  tried.     I  became  expert  at  inanimate  targets. 

From  time  to  time  I  heard  encouraging  news  from  Lee 


TONTO  BASIN  247 

about  horses.  Edd  wrote  me  about  lion  tracks  in  the 
snow,  and  lynx  up  cedar  trees,  and  gobblers  four  feet 
high,  and  that  there  was  sure  to  be  a  good  crop  of  acorns, 
and  therefore  some  bears.  He  told  me  about  a  big 
grizzly  cow-killer  being  chased  and  shot  in  Chevelon 
Canyon.  News  about  hounds,  however,  was  slow  in 
coming.  Dogs  were  difficult  to  find.  At  length  Haught 
wrote  me  that  he  had  secured  two ;  and  in  this  same  letter 
he  said  the  boys  were  cutting  trails  down  under  the  rim. 

Everything  pertaining  to  my  cherished  plans  appeared 
to  be  turning  out  well.  But  during  this  time  I  spent 
five  months  at  hard  work  and  intense  emotional  strain, 
writing  the  longest  novel  I  ever  attempted;  and  I  over- 
taxed my  endurance.  By  the  middle  of  June,  when  I 
finished,  I  was  tired  out.  That  would  not  have  mattered 
if  I  had  not  hurt  my  back  in  an  eleven-hour  fight  with  a 
giant  broadbill  swordfish.  This  strain  kept  me  from 
getting  in  my  usual  physical  trim.  I  could  not  climb  the 
hills,  or  exert  myself.  Swimming  hurt  me  more  than 
anything.  So  I  had  to  be  careful  and  wait  until  my  back 
slowly  got  better.  By  September  it  had  improved,  but 
not  enough  to  make  me  feel  any  thrills  over  horseback 
riding.  It  seemed  to  me  that  I  would  be  compelled  to 
go  ahead  and  actually  work  the  pain  out  of  my  back,  an 
ordeal  through  which  I  had  passed  before,  and  surely 
dreaded. 

During  the  summer  I  had  purchased  a  famous  chestnut 
sorrel  horse  named  Don  Carlos.  He  was  much  in  demand 
among  the  motion -picture  companies  doing  western  plays; 
and  was  really  too  fine  and  splendid  a  horse  to  be  put  to 
the  risks  common  to  the  movies.  I  saw  him  first  at 
Palm  Springs,  down  in  southern  California,  where  my 
book  Desert  Gold  was  being  made  into  a  motion-picture. 
Don  would  not  have  failed  to  strike  any  one  as  being  a 
wonderful  horse.     He  was  tremendously  high  and  rangy 


248  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

and  powerful  in  build,  yet  graceful  withal,  a  sleek,  shiny 
chestnut  red  in  color,  with  fine  legs,  broad  chest,  and  a 
magnificent  head.  I  rode  him  only  once  before  I  bought 
him,  and  that  was  before  I  hurt  my  back.  His  stride 
was  what  one  would  expect  from  sight  of  him;  his  trot 
seemed  to  tear  me  to  pieces;  his  spirit  was  such  that  he 
wanted  to  prance  all  the  time.  But  in  spite  of  his  spirit 
he  was  a  pet.  And  how  he  could  run !  Nielsen  took  Don 
to  Flagstaff  by  express.  And  when  Nielsen  wrote  me  he 
said  all  of  Flagstaff  came  down  to  the  station  to  see  the 
famous  Don  Carlos.  The  car  in  which  he  had  traveled 
was  backed  alongside  a  platform.  Don  refused  to  step 
on  the  boards  they  placed  from  platform  to  car.  He  did 
not  trust  them.  Don's  intelligence  had  been  sharpened 
by  his  experience  with  the  movies.  Nielsen  tried  to  lead, 
to  coax,  and  to  drive  Don  to  step  on  the  board  walk. 
Don  would  not  go.  But  suddenly  he  snorted,  and 
jumped  the  space  clear,  to  plunge  and  pound  down  upon 
the  platform,  scattering  the  crowd  like  quail. 

The  day  before  my  departure  from  Los  Angeles  was 
almost  as  terrible  an  ordeal  as  I  anticipated  would  be  my 
first  day's  ride  on  Don  Carlos.  And  this  ordeal  consisted 
of  listening  to  Romer's  passionate  appeals  and  impor- 
tunities to  let  him  go  on  the  hunt.  My  only  defence  was 
that  he  must  not  be  taken  from  school.  School  forsooth ! 
He  was  way  ahead  of  his  class.  If  he  got  behind  he  could 
make  it  up.  I  talked  and  argued.  Once  he  lost  his 
temper,  a  rare  thing  with  him,  and  said  he  would  run 
away  from  school,  ride  on  a  freight  train  to  Flagstaff, 
steal  a  horse  and  track  me  to  my  camp.  I  could  not  say 
very  much  in  reply  to  this  threat,  because  I  remembered 
that  I  had  made  worse  to  my  father,  and  carried  it  out. 
I  had  to  talk  sense  to  Romer.  Often  we  had  spoken  of 
a  wonderful  hunt  in  Africa  some  day,  when  he  was  old 
enough;  and  I  happened  upon  a  good  argument.     I  said: 


TONTO  BASIN  249 

"You'll  miss  a  year  out  of  school  then.  It  won't  be  so 
very  long.  Don't  you  think  you  ought  to  stay  in  school 
faithfully  now?"  So  in  the  end  I  got  away  from  him, 
victorious,  though  not  wholly  happy.  The  truth  was  I 
wanted  him  to  go. 

My  Jap  cook  Takahashi  met  me  in  Flagstaff.  He  was 
a  very  short,'  very  broad,  very  muscular  little  fellow  with 
a  brown,  strong  face,  more  pleasant'  than'  usually  seen  in 
Orientals.  Secretly  I  had  made  sure  that  in  Takahashi 
I  had  discovered  a  treasure,  but  I  was  careful  to  conceal 
this  conviction  from  R.  C,  the  Doyles,  and  Nielsen. 
They  were  glad  to  see  him  with  us,  but  they  manifestly 
did  not'  expect  wonders. 

How  brief  the  span  of  a  year !  Here  I  was  in  Flagstaff 
again  outfitting  for  another  hunt.  It  seemed  incredible. 
It  revived  that  old  haunting  thought  about  the'  shortness 
of  life.  But  in  spite  of  that  or  perhaps  more  because  of 
it  the  pleasure  was  all  the  keener.  In  truth'  the  only 
drawback  to  this  start  was  the  absence  of  Romer,  and 
my  poor  physical  condition.  R.  C.  appeared  to  be  in 
fine  fettle. 

But  I  was  not  well.  In  the  mornings  I  could  scarcely 
arise,  and  when  I  did  so  I  could  hardly  straighten  myself. 
More  than  once  I  grew  doubtful  of  my  strength  to  under- 
take such  a  hard  trip.  This  doubt  I  fought  fiercely,  for 
I  knew  that  the  right  thing  for  me  to  do  was  to  go — to 
stand  the  pain  and  hardship — to  toil  along  until  my  old 
strength  and  elasticity  returned.  What  an  opportunity 
to  try  out  my  favorite  theory !  For  I  believed  that  labor 
and  pain  were  good  for  mankind — that  strenuous  life  in 
the  open  would  cure  any  bodily  ill. 

On  September  fourteenth  Edd  and  George  drifted  into 
Flagstaff  to  join  us,  and  their  report  of  game  and  water 
and  grass  and  acorns  was  so  favorable  that  I  would  have 
gone  if  I  had  been  unable  to  ride  on  anything  but  a  wagon. 


[2SO  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

We  got  away  on  September  fifteenth  at  two-thirty 
o'clock  with  such  an  outfit  as  I  had  never  had  in  all  my 
many  trips  put  together.  We  had  a  string  of  saddle 
horses  besides  those  the  men  rode.  They  were  surely  a 
spirited  bunch ;  and  that  first  day  it  was  indeed  a  job  to 
keep  them  with  us.  Out  of  sheer  defiance  with  myself 
I  started  on  Don  Carlos.  He  was  no  trouble,  except  that 
it  took  all  my  strength  to  hold  him  in.  He  tossed  his 
head,  champed  his  bit,  and  pranced  sideways  along  the 
streets  of  Flagstaff,  manifestly  to  show  off  his  brand  new 
black  Mexican  saddle,  with  silver  trappings  and  tapa- 
deros.  I  was  sure  that  he  did  not  do  that  to  show  me  off. 
But  Don  liked  to  dance  and  prance  along  before  a  crowd, 
a  habit  that  he  had  acquired  with  the  motion  pictures. 

Lee  and  Nielsen  and  George  had  their  difficulties  driv- 
ing the  free  horses.  Takahashi  rode  a  little  buckskin 
Navajo  mustang.  An-  evidence  of  how  extremely  short 
the  Jap's  legs  were  made  itself  plain  in  the  fact  that 
stirrups  could  not  be  fixed  so  he  could  reach  them  with 
his  feet.  When  he  used  any  support  at  all  he  stuck  his 
feet  through  the  straps  above  the  stirrups.  How  funny 
his  squat,  broad  figure  looked  in  a  saddle !  Evidently  he 
was  not  accustomed  to  horses.  When  I  saw  the  mustang 
roll  the  white  of  his  eyes  and  glance  back  at  Takahashi 
then  I  knew  something  would  happen  sooner  or  later. 

Nineteen  miles  on  Don'  Carlos  reduced  me  to  a  miser- 
able aching  specimen  of  manhood.  But  what  made  me 
endure  and  go  on  and  finish  to  camp  was  the  strange  fact 
that  the  longer  I  rode  the  less  my  back  pained.  Other 
parts  of  my  anatomy,  however,  grew  sorer  as  we  pro- 
gressed. Don  Carlos  pleased  me  immensely,  only  I  feared 
ho^  was  too  much  horse  for  me.  A  Mormon  friend  of 
mine,  an  Indian  trader,  looked  Don  over  in  Flagstaff,  and 
pronounced  him:  "Shore  one  grand  hoss!"  This  man 
had  broken  many  wild  horses,  and  his  compliment  pleased 


TONTO  BASIN  251 

me.     All  the  same  the  nineteen  miles  on  Don  hurt  my 
vanity  almost  as  much  as  my  body. 

We  camped  in  a  cedar  pasture  off  the  main  road.  This 
road  was  a  new  one  for  us  to  take  to  our  hunting  grounds. 
I  was  too  bunged  up  to  help  Nielsen  pitch  our  tent.  In 
fact  when  I  sat  down  I  was  anchored.  Still  I  could  use 
my  eyes,  and  that  made  life  worth  living.  Sunset  was  a 
gorgeous  spectacle.  The  San  Francisco  Peaks  were 
shrouded  in  purple  storm-clouds,  and  the  west  was  all 
gold  and  silver,  with  low  clouds  rimmed  in  red.  This 
sunset  ended  in  a  great  flare  of  dull  magenta  with  a  back- 
ground of  purple. 

That  evening  was  the  try-out  of  oui  new  chuck-box 
and  chef.  I  had  supplied  the  men  with  their  own  outfit 
and  supplies,  to  do  with  as  they  liked,  an  arrangement  I 
found  to  be  most  satisfactory.  Takahashi  was  to  take 
care  of  R.  C.  and  me.  In  less  than  half  an  hour  from  the 
time  the  Jap  lighted  a  fire  he  served  the  best  supper  I  ever 
had  in  camp  anywhere.  R.  C.  lauded  him  to  the  skies. 
And  I  began  to  think  I  could  unburden  myself  of  my 
conviction. 

I  did  not  awaken  to  the  old  zest  and  thrill  of  the  open. 
Something  was  wrong  with  me.  The  sunset,  the  camp- 
fire,  the  dark  clear  night  with  its  trains  of  stars,  the 
distant  yelp  of  coyotes — these  seemed  less  to  me  than 
what  I  had  hoped  for.  My  feelings  were  locked  round 
my  discomfort  and  pain. 

About  noon  next  day  we  rode  out  of  the  cedars  into 
the  open  desert — a  rolling,  level  land  covered  with  fine 
grass,  and  yellow  daisies,  Indian  paint  brush,  and  a 
golden  flowering  weed.  This  luxuriance  attested  to  the 
copious  and  recent  rains.  They  had  been  a  boon  to  dry 
Arizona.  No  sage  showed  or  greasewood,  and  very  few 
rocks.  The  sun  burned  hot.  I  gazed  out  at  the  desert, 
and  the  cloud  pageant  in  the  sky,  trying  hard  to  forget 


252  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

myself,  and  to  see  what  I  knew  was  there  for  me.  Roll- 
ing columnar  white  and  cream  clouds,  majestic  and 
beautiful,  formed  storms  off  on  the  horizon.  Sunset  on 
the  open  desert  that  afternoon  was  singularly  character- 
istic of  Arizona — purple  and  gold  and  red,  with  long  lanes 
of  blue  between  the  .colored  cloud  banks. 

We  made  camp  at  Meteor  Crater,  one  of  the  many 
wonders  of  this  wonderland.  It  was  a  huge  hole  in  the 
earth  over  five  hundred  feet  deep,  said  to  have  been  made 
by  a  meteor  burying  itself  there.  Seen  from  the  outside 
the  slope  was  gradual  up  to  the  edges,  which  were  scal- 
loped and  irregular;  on  the  inside  the  walls  were  pre- 
cipitous. Our  camp  was  on  'the  windy  desert,  a  long 
sweeping  range  of  grass,  sloping  down,  dotted  with  cattle, 
with  buttes  and  mountains  in  .the  distance.  Most  of 
my  sensations  of  the  day  partook  of  the  nature  of  woe. 

September  seventeenth  bade  fair  to  be  my  worst  day — 
at  least  I  did  not  see  how  any  other  could  ever  be  so  bad. 
Glaring  hot  sun — reflected  heat  from  1  the  bare  road — 
dust  and  sand  and  wind !  Particularly  hard  on  me  were 
what  the  Arizonians  called  dust-devils,  whirlwinds  of 
sand.  On  and  off  I  walked  a  good  many  miles,  the  latter 
of  which  I  hobbled.  Don  Carlos  did  not  know  what  to 
make  of  this.  He  eyed  me,  and  nosed  me,  and  tossed  his 
head  as  if  to  say  I  was  a  strange  rider  for  him.  Like  my 
mustang.  Night,  he  would  not  stand  to  be  mounted. 
When  I  touched  the  stirrup  that  was  a  signal  to  go.  He 
had  been  trained  to  it.  As  he  was  nearly  seventeen 
hands  high,  and  as  I  could  not  get  my  foot  in  the  stirrup 
from  level  ground,  to  mount  him  in  my  condition  seemed 
little  less  than  terrible.  I  always  held  back  out  of  sight 
when  I  attempted  this.  Many  times  I  failed.  Once  I 
fell  flat  and  lay  a  moment  in  the  dust.  Don  Carlos 
looked  down  upon  me  in  a  way  I  imagined  was  sympa- 
thetic.    At  least  he  bent  his  noble  head  and  srnelled  at 


TONTO  BASIN  253 

me.  I  scrambled  to  my  feet,  led  him  round  into  a  low- 
place,  and  drawing  a  deep  breath,  and  nerving  myself  to 
endure  the  pain  like  a  stab,  I  got  into  the  saddle  again. 

Two  things  sustained  me  in  this  ordeal,  which  was  the 
crudest  horseback  ride  I  ever  had — first,  the  conviction 
that  I  could  cure  my  ills  by  enduring  the  agony  of  violent 
action,  of  hot  sun,  of  hard  bed;  and  secondly,  the  knowl- 
edge that  after  it  was  all  over  the  remembrance  of  hard- 
ship and  achievement  would  be  singularly  sweet.  So  it 
had  been  in  the  case  of  the  five  days  on  the  old  Crook 
road  in  1918,  when  extreme  w^orry  and  tremendous 
exertion  had  made  the  hours  hideous.  So  it  had  been 
with  other  arduous  and  poignant  experiences,  A  poet 
said  that  the  crown  of  sorrow  was  in  remembering  happier 
times :  I  believed  that  there  was  a  great  deal  of  happiness 
in  remembering  times  of  stress,  of  despair,  of  extreme  and 
hazardous  effort.  Anyway,  without  these  two  feelings 
in  my  mind  I  would  have  given  up  riding  Don  Carlos  that 
day,  and  have  abandoned  the  trip. 

We  covered  twenty-two  miles  by  sundown,  a  rather 
poor  day's  showing;  and  camped  on  the  bare  fiat  desert, 
using  water  and  wood  we  had  packed  with  us.  The  last 
thing  I  remembered,  as  my  eyes  closed  heavily,  was  what 
a  blessing  it  was  to  rest  and  to  sleep. 

Next  day  we  sheered  off  to  the  southward,  heading 
toward  Chevelon  Butte,  a  black  cedared  mountain,  rising 
lone  out  of  the  desert,  thirty  miles  away.  We  crossed 
two  streams  bank  full  of  water,  a  circumstance  I  never 
before  saw  in  Arizona.  Everywhere  too  the  grass  was 
high.  We  climbed  gradually  all  day,  everybody  sun- 
burned and  weary,  the  horses  settling  down  to  save 
themselves;  and  we  camped  high  up  on  the  desert 
plateau,  six  thousand  feet  above  sea  level,  where  it  was 
windy,  cool,  and  fragrant  with  sage  and  cedar.  Except 
the  first  few,  the  hours  of  this  day  each  marked  a  little 


254  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

less  torture  for  me ;  but  at  that  I  fell  off  Don  Carlos  when 
we  halted.  And  I  was  not  able  to  do  my  share  of  the 
camp  work.  R.  C.  was  not  as  spry  and  chipper  as  I  had 
seen  him,  a  fact  from  which  I  gathered  infinite  consola- 
tion.    Misery  loves  company. 

A  storm  threatened.  All  the  west  was  purple  under 
on-coming  purple  clouds.  At  sight  of  this  something 
strange  and  subtle,  yet  familiar,  revived  in  me.  It  made 
me  feel  a  little  more  like  the  self  I  thought  I  knew.  So 
I  watched  the  lightning  flare  and  string  along  the  horizon. 
Some  time  in  the  night  thunder  awakened  me.  The 
imminence  of  a  severe  storm  forced  us  to  roll  out  and 
look  after  the  tent.  What  a  pitch  black  night !  Down 
through  the  murky,  weird  blackness  shot  a  wonderful 
zigzag  rope  of  lightning,  blue-white,  dazzling;  and  it 
disintegrated,  leaving  segments  of  fire  in  the  air.  All 
this  showed  in  a  swift  flash — then  we  were  absolutely 
blind.  I  could  not  see  for  several  moments.  It  rained 
a  little.  Only  the  edge  of  the  storm  touched  us.  Thun- 
der rolled  and  boomed  along  the  battlements,  deep  and 
rumbling  and  detonating. 

No  dust  or  heat  next  morning!  The  desert  floor  ap- 
peared clean  and  damp,  with  fresh  gray  sage  and  shining 
bunches  of  cedar.  We  climbed  into  the  high  cedars,  and 
then  to  the  pinons,  and  then  to  the  junipers  and  pines. 
Climbing  so  out  of  desert  to  forestland  was  a  gradual 
and  accumulating  joy  to  me.  What  contrast  in  vegeta- 
tion, in  air,  in  color!  Still  the  forest  consisted  of  small 
trees.  Not  until  next  day  did  we  climb  farther  to  the 
deepening,  darkening  forest,  and  at  last  to  the  silver 
spruce.  That  camp,  the  fifth  night  out,  was  beside  a 
lake  of  surface  water,  where  we  had  our  first  big 
camp-fire. 

September  twenty-first  and  ten  miles  from  Beaver 
Dam  Canyon,  where  a  year  before  I  had  planned  to  meet 


TONTO  BASIN  255 

Haught  this  day  and  date  at  noon!  I  could  make  that 
appointment,  saddle-sore  and  weary  as  I  was,  but  I 
doubted  we  could  get  the  wagons  there.  The  forest 
ground  was  soft.  All  the  little  swales  were  full  of  water. 
How  pleasant,  how  welcome,  how  beautiful  and  lonely 
the  wild  f orestland !  We  made  advance  slowly.  It  was 
afternoon  by  the  time  we  reached  the  rim  road,  and  four 
o'clock  when  we  halted  at  the  exact  spot  where  we  had 
left  our  wagon  the  year  before. 

Lee  determined  to  drive  the  wagons  down  over  the 
rocky  benches  into  Beaver  Dam  Canyon ;  and  to  that  end 
he  and  the  men  began  to  cut  pines,  drag  logs,  and  roll 
stones. 

R.  C.  and  I  rode  down  through  the  forest,  crossing  half 
a  dozen  swift  little  streams  of  amber  water,  where  a  year 
before  all  had  been  dry  as  tinder.  We  found  Haught's 
camp  in  a  grove  of  yellowing  aspens.  Haught  was  there 
to  meet  us.  He  had  not  changed  any  more  than  the 
rugged  pine  tree  under  which  a  year  past  we  had  made 
our  agreement.  He  wore  the  same  blue  shirt  and  the  old 
black  sombrero. 

"Hello  Haught,"  was  my  greeting,  as  I  dismounted  and 
pulled  out  my  watch.  "I'm  four  hours  and  a  quarter 
late.  Sorry.  I  could  have  made  it,  but  didn't  want  to 
leave  the  wagons." 

"Wal,  wal,  I  shore  am  glad  to  see  you,"  he  replied, 
with  a  keen  flash  in  his  hazel  eyes  and  a  smile  on  his 
craggy  face.  ' '  I  reckoned  you'd  make  it.  How  are  you  ? 
Look  sort  of  fagged." 

"Just  about  all  in,  Haught,"  I  replied,  as  we  shook 
hands. 

Then  Copple  appeared,  swaggering  out  of  the  aspens. 
He  was  the  man  I  met  in  Payson  and  who  so  kindly  had 
made  me  take  his  rifle.  I  had  engaged  him  also  for  this 
hunt.     A  brawny  man  he  was,  with  powerful  shoulders, 


256  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

swarthy-skinned,  and  dark-eyed,  looking  indeed  the 
Indian  blood  he  claimed. 

"Wouldn't  have  recognized  you  anywhere's  else,"  he 
said. 

These  keen-eyed  outdoor  men  at  a  glance  saw  the 
havoc  work  and  pain  had  played  with  me.  They  were 
solicitous,  and  when  I  explained  my  condition  they  made 
light  of  that,  and  showed  relief  that  I  was  not  ill.  "Saw 
wood  an'  rustle  around,"  said  Haught.  And  Copple 
said:   "He  needs  venison  an'  bear  meat." 

They  rode  back  with  us  up  to  the  wagons.  Copple 
had  been  a  freighter.  He  picked  out  a  way  to  drive  down 
into  the  canyon.  So  rough  and  steep  it  was  that  I  did 
not  believe  driving  down  would  be  possible.  But  with 
axes  and  pick  and  shovel,  and  a  heaving  of  rocks,  they 
worked  a  road  that  Lee  drove  down.  Some  places  were 
almost  straight  down.  But  the  ground  was  soft,  hoofs 
and  wheels  sank  deeply,  and  though  one  wagon  lurched 
almost  over,  and  the  heavily  laden  chuck-wagon  almost 
hurdled  the  team,  Lee  made  the  bad  places  without 
accident.  Two  hours  after  our  arrival,  such  was  the 
labor  of  many  strong  hands,  we  reached  our  old  camp 
ground.  One  thing  was  certain,  however,  and  that 
was  we  would  never  get  back  up  the  way  we  came 
down. 

Except  for  a  luxuriance  of  grass  and  ferns,  and  two 
babbling  streams  of  water,  our  old  camp  ground  had  not 
changed.  I  sat  down  with  mingled  emotions.  How 
familiarly  beautiful  and  lonely  this  canyon  glade!  The 
great  pines  and  spruces  looked  down  upon  me  with  a 
benediction.  How  serene,  passionless,  strong  they 
seemed!  It  was  only  men  who  changed  in  brief  time. 
The  long  year  of  worry  and  dread  and  toil  and  pain  had 
passed.  It  was  nothing.  On  the  soft,  fragrant,  pine- 
scented  breeze  came  a  whispering  of  welcome  from  the 


TONTO  BASIN  257 

forestland:  "You  are  here  again.  Live  now — in  the 
present." 

Takahashi  beamed  upon  me:  "More  better  place  to 
camp,"  he  said,  grinning.  Already  the  Jap  had  won  my 
admiration  and  liking.  His  ability  excited  my  interest, 
and  I  wanted  to  know  more  about  him.  As  to  this 
camp-site  being  a  joy  compared  to  the  ones  stretched 
back  along  the  road  he  was  assuredly  right.  That  night 
we  did  no  more  than  eat  and  unroll  our  beds.  But  next 
day  there  set  in  the  pleasant  tasks  of  unpacking,  putting 
up  tents  and  flies,  cutting  spruce  for  thick,  soft  beds,  and 
a  hundred  odd  jobs  dear  to  every  camper.  Takahashi 
would  not  have  any  one  help  him.  He  dug  a  wide  space 
for  fires,  erected  a  stone  windbreak,  and  made  two  ovens 
out  of  baked  mud,  the  like  of  which,  and  the  cleverness  of 
which  I  had  never  seen.     He  was  a  whirlwind  for  work. 

The  matter  of  firewood  always  concerned  Nielsen  and 
me  more  than  any  one.  Nielsen  was  a  Norwegian,  raised 
as  a  boy  to  use  a  crosscut  saw;  and  as  for  me  I  was  a 
connoisseur  in  camp-fires  and  a  lover  of  them.  Hence 
we  had  brought  a  crosscut  saw — a  long  one  with  two 
handles.  I  remembered  from  the  former  year  a  huge 
dead  pine  that  had  towered  bleached  and  white  at  the 
edge  of  the  glade.  It  stood  there  still.  The  storms  and 
blasts  of  another  winter  had  not  changed  it  in  the  least. 
Itf  was  five  feet  thick  at  the  base  and  solid.  Nielsen 
chopped  a  notch  in  it  on  the  lower  side,  and  then  he  and 
Edd  began  to  saw  into  it  on  the  other.  I  saw  the  first 
tremor  of  the  lofty  top.  Then  soon  it  shivered  all  the 
way  down,  gave  forth  a  loud  crack,  swayed  slowly,  and 
fell  majestically,  to  strike  with  a  thundering  crash. 
Only  the  top  of  this  pine  broke  in  the  fall,  but  there  were 
splinters  and  knots  and  branches  enough  to  fill  a  wagon. 
These  we  carried  up  to  our  camp-fire. 

Then  the  boys  sawed  off  half  a  cigzen  four-foot  sections, 


258  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

which  served  as  fine,  solid,  flat  tables  for  comfort  around 
camp.  The  method  of  using  a  crosscut  saw  was  for  two 
men  to  take  a  stand  opposite  one  another,  with  the  log 
between.  The  handles  of  the  saw  stood  upright.  Each 
man  should  pull  easily  and  steadily  toward  himself,  but 
should  not  push  back  nor  bear  down.  It  looked  a 
rhythmic,  manly  exercise,  and  not  arduous.  But  what 
an  illusion !  Nielsen  and  Copple  were  the  only  ones  that 
day  who  could  saw  wholly  through  the  thick  log  without 
resting.  Later  Takahashi  turned  out  to  be  as  good,  if 
not  better,  than  either  of  them,  but  we  had  that,  as  well 
as  many  other  wonderful  facts,  to  learn  about  the  Jap. 

"Come  on,"  said  R.  C.  to  me,  invitingly.  "You've 
been  talking  about  this  crosscut  saw  game.  I'll  bet  you 
find  it  harder  than  pulling  on  a  swordfish." 

Pride  goes  before  a  fall !  I  knew  that  in  my  condition 
I  could  do  little  with  the  saw,  but  I  had  to  try.  R.  C. 
was  still  fresh  when  I  had  to  rest.  Perhaps  no  one  except 
myself  realized  the  weakness  of  my  back,  but  the  truth 
was  a  couple  of  dozen  pulls  on  that  saw  almost  made  me 
collapse.  Wherefore  I  grew  furious  with  myself  and 
swore  I  would  do  it  or  die.  I  sawed  till  I  fell  over — then 
I  rested  and  went  back  at  it.  Half  an  hour  of  this  kind 
of  exercise  gave  me  a  stab  in  my  left  side  infinitely 
sharper  than  the  pain  in  my  back.  Also  it  made  me 
wringing  wet,  hot  as  fire,  and  as  breathless  as  if  I  had  run 
a  mile  up  hill.  That  experience  determined  me  to  stick 
to  crosscut  sawing  every  day.  Next  morning  I  ap- 
proached it  with  enthusiasm,  yet  with  misgivings.  I 
could  not  keep  my  breath.  Pain  I  could  and  did  bear 
without  letting  on.  But  to  have  to  stop  was  humiliating. 
If  I  tried  to  keep  up  with  the  sturdy  Haught  boys,  or 
with  the  brawny  Copple  or  the  giant  Nielsen,  soon  I 
would  be  compelled  to  keel  over.  In  the  sawing  through 
a  four-foot  section  of  log  I  had  to  rest  eight  times.     They 


TONTO  BASIN  259 

all  had  a  great  deal  of  fun  out  of  it,  and  I  pretended  to  be 
good  natured,  but  to  me  who  had  always  been  so  vigorous 
and  active  and  enduring  it  was  not  fun.  It  was  tragic. 
But  all  was  not  gloom  for  me.  This  very  afternoon 
Nielsen,  the  giant,  showed  that  a  stiff  climb  out  of  the 
canyon,  at  that  eight  thousand  feet  altitude,  completely 
floored  him.  Yet  I  accomplished  that  with  comparative 
ease.  I  could  climb,  which  seemied  proof  that  I  was 
gaining.  A  man  becomes  used  to  certain  labors  and 
exercises.  I  thought  the  crosscut  saw  a  wonderful  tool 
to  train  a  man,  but  it  must  require  time.  It  harked  back 
to  pioneer  days  when  men  were  men.  Nielsen  said  he 
had  lived  among  Mexican  boys  who  sawed  logs  for  nine- 
teen cents  apiece  and  earned  seven  dollars  a  day. 
Copple  said  three  minutes  was  good  time  to  saw  a  four- 
foot  log  in  two  pieces.  So  much  for  physical  condition ! 
As  for  firewood,  for  which  our  crosscut  saw  was  intended, 
pitch  pine  and  yellow  pine  and  spruce  were  all  odorous 
and  inflammable  woods,  but  they  did  not  make  good 
firewood.  Dead  aspen  was  good;  dead  oak  the  best. 
It  burned  to  red  hot  coals  with  little  smoke.  As  for 
camp-fires,  any  kind  of  dry  wood  pleased,  smoke  or  no 
smoke.  In  fact  I  loved  the  smell  and  color  of  wood- 
smoke,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  it  made  my  eyes  smart. 

By  October  first,  which  was  the  opening  day  of  the 
hunting  season,  I  had  labored  at  various  exercises  until 
I  felt  fit  to  pack  a  rifle  through  the  woods.  R.  C.  and 
I  went  out  alone  on  foot.  Not  by  any  means  was  the 
day  auspicious.  The  sun  tried  to  show  through  a  steely 
haze,  making  only  a  pale  shift  of  sunshine.  And  the  air 
was  rather  chilly.  Enthusiasm,  however,  knew  no  deter- 
rents. We  walked  a  mile  down  Beaver  Dam  Canyon, 
then  climbed  the  western  slope.  As  long  as  the  sun 
shone  I  knew  the  country  fairly  well,  or  rather  my 
direction.     We  slipped  along  through  the  silent  woods, 


26o  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

satisfied  with  everything.  Presently  the  sun  broke 
through  the  clouds,  and  shone  fitfully,  making  intervals 
of  shadow,  and  others  of  golden-green  verdure. 

Along  an  edge  of  one  of  the  grassy  parks  we  came  across 
fresh  deer  tracks.  Several  deer  had  run  out  of  the  woods 
just  ahead  of  us,  evidently  having  winded  us.  One  track 
was  that  of  a  big  buck.  We  trailed  these  tracks  across 
the  park,  then  made  a  detour  in  hopes  of  heading  the 
deer  off,  but  failed.  A  huge,  dark  cloud  scudded  out  of 
the  west  and  let  down  a  shower  of  fine  rain.  We  kept 
dry  under  a  spreading  spruce.  The  forest  then  was 
gloomy  and  cool  with  only  a  faint  moan  of  wind  and 
pattering  of  raindrops  to  break  the  silence.  The  cloud 
passed  by,  the  sun  shone  again,  the  forest  glittered  in  its 
dress  of  diamonds.  There  had  been  but  little  frost,  so 
that  aspen  and  maple  thickets  had  not  yet  taken  on  their 
cloth  of  gold  and  blaze  of  red.  Most  of  the  leaves  were 
still  on  the  trees,  making  these  thickets  impossible  to  see 
into.  We  hunted  along  the  edges  of  these,  and  across 
the  wide,  open  ridge  from  canyon  to  canyon,  and  saw 
nothing  but  old  tracks.  Black  and  white  clouds  rolled 
up  and  brought  a  squall.  We  took  to  another  spruce 
tent  for  shelter.  After  this  squall  the  sky  became  ob- 
scured by  a  field  of  gray  cloud  through  which  the  sun 
shone  dimly.  This  matter  worried  me.  I  was  aware 
of  my  direction  then,  but  if  I  lost  the  sun  I  would  soon 
be  in  difficulties. 

Gradually  we  worked  back  along  the  ridge  toward 
camp,  and  headed  several  ravines  that  ran  and  widened 
down  into  the  big  canyon.  All  at  once  R.  C.  held  up  a 
warning  finger.  "Listen!"  With  abatement  of  breath 
I  listened,  but  heard  nothing  except  the  mournful  sough 
of  the  pines.  "Thought  I  heard  a  whistle,"  he  said. 
We  went  on,  all  eyes  and  ears. 

R.  C.  and  I  flattered  ourselves  that  together  we  made 


TONTO  BASIN  261 

rather  a  good  hunting  team.  We  were  fairly  well  versed 
in  woodcraft  and  could  slip  along  stealthily.  I  possessed 
an  Indian  sense  of  direction  that  had  never  yet  failed  me. 
To  be  sure  we  had  much  to  learn  about  deer  stalking. 
But  I  had  never  hunted  with  any  man  whose  ears  were 
as  quick  as  R.  C.'s.  A  naturally  keen  hearing,  and  many 
years  of  still  hunting,  accounted  for  this  faculty.  As  for 
myself,  the  one  gift  of  which  I  was  especially  proud  was 
my  eyesight.  Almost  invariably  I  could  see  game  in  the 
woods  before  any  one  who  was  with  me.  This  had  ap- 
plied to  all  my  guides  except  Indians.  And  I  believed 
that  five  summers  on  the  Pacific,  searching  the  wide 
expanse  of  ocean  for  swordfish  fins,  had  made  my  eyes  all 
the  keener  for  the  woods.  R.  C.  and  I  played  at  a  game 
in  which  he  tried  to  hear  the  movement  of  some  forest 
denizen  before  I  saw  it.  This  fun  for  us  dated  back  to 
boyhood  days. 

Suddenly  R.  C.  stopped  short,  with  his  head  turning  to 
one  side,  and  his  body  stiffening.  "I  heard  that  whistle 
again,"  he  said.  We  stood  perfectly  motionless  for  a 
long  moment.  Then  from  far  off  in  the  forest  I  heard  a 
high,  clear,  melodious,  bugling  note.  How  thrilling,  how 
lonely  a  sound ! 

"It's  a  bull-elk,"  I  replied.  Then  we  sat  down  upon  a 
log  and  listened.  R.  C.  had  heard  that  whistle  in  Colo- 
rado, but  had  not  recognized  it.  Just  as  the  mournful 
howl  of  a  wolf  is  the  wildest,  most  haunting  sound  of  the 
wilderness,  so  is  the  bugle  of  the  elk  the  noblest,  most 
melodious  and  thrilling.  With  tingling  nerves  and 
strained  ears  we  listened.  We  heard  elk  bugling  in 
different  directions,  hard  to  locate.  One  bull  appeared 
to  be  low  down,  another  high  up,  another  working 
away.  R.  C,  and  I  decided  to  stalk  them.  The  law 
prohibited  the  killing  of  elk,  but  that  was  no  reason 
why  we  might  not  trail  them,  and  have  the  sport  of 
18 


262  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

seeing  them  in  their  native  haunts.  So  we  stole  softly- 
through  the  woods,  halting  now  and  then  to  listen, 
pleased  to  note  that  every  whistle  we  heard  appeared  to 
be  closer. 

At  last,  apparently  only  a  deep  thicketed  ravine  sep- 
arated us  from  the  ridge  upon  which  the  elk  were 
bugling.  Here  our  stalk  began  to  become  really  ex- 
citing. We  did  not  make  any  noise  threading  that  wet 
thicket,  and  we  ascended  the  opposite  slope  very  cau- 
tiously. What  little  wind  there  was  blew  from  the  elk 
toward  us,  so  they  could  not  scent  us.  Once  up  on  the 
edge  of  the  ridge  we  halted  to  listen.  'After  a  long  time 
we  heard  a  far-away  bugle,  then  another  at  least  half  a 
mile  distant.  Had  we  miscalculated?  R.  C.  was  for 
working  down  the  ridge  and  I  was  for  waiting  there  a  few 
moments.  So  •we  sat  down  again.  The  forest  was 
almost  silent  now.  Somewhere  'a  squirrel  was  barking. 
The  sun  peeped  out  of  the  pale  clouds,  lighted  the  glades, 
rimmed  the  pines  in  brightness.  I  opened  my  lips  to 
speak  to  R.  C.  when  I  was  rendered  mute  by  a  piercing 
whistle,  high-pitched  and  sweet  and  melodiously  pro- 
longed. It  made  my  ears  tingle  and  my  blood  dance. 
"Right  close,"  whispered  R.  C.  "Come  on."  We 
began  to  steal  through  the  forest,  keeping  behind  trees 
and  thickets,  peeping  out,  and  making  no  more  sound 
than  shadows.  The  ground  was  damp,  facilitating  our 
noiseless  stalk.  In  this  way  we  became  separated  by 
about  thirty  steps,  but  we  walked  on  and  halted  in  unison. 
Passing  through  a  thicket  of  little  pines  we  came  into  an 
open  forest  full  of  glades.  Keenly  I  peered  everywhere, 
as  I  slipped  from  tree  to  tree.  Finally  we  stooped  along 
for  a  space,  and  then,  at  a  bugle  blast  so  close  that  it 
made  me  jump,  I  began  to  crawl.  My  objective  point 
was  a  fallen  pine  the  trunk  of  which  appeared  high 
enough  to  conceal  me.     R.  C.  kept  working  a  little 


TONTO  BASIN  263 

farther  to  the  right.  Once  he  beckoned  me,  but  I  kept 
on.  Still  I  saw  him  drop  down  to  crawl.  Our  stalk  was 
getting  toward  its  climax.  My  state  was  one  of  quiver- 
ing intensity  of  thrill,  of  excitement,  of  pleasure.  Reach- 
ing my  log  I  peeped  over  it.  I  saw  a  cow-elk  and  a 
yearling  calf  trotting  across  a  glade  about  a  hundred 
yards  distant.  Wanting  R.  C.  to  see  them  I  looked  his 
way,  and  pointed.  But  he  was  pointing  also  and  vehe- 
mently beckoning  for  me  to  join  him.  I  ran  on  all  fours 
over  to  where  he  knelt.  He  whispered  pantingly: 
"Grandest  sight — ever  saw!"     I  peeped  out. 

In  a  glade  not  seventy-five  yards  away  stood  a  mag- 
nificent bull  elk,  looking  back  over,  his  shoulder.  His 
tawny  hind-quarters,  then  his  dark  brown,  almost  black 
shaggy  shoulders  and  head,  then  his  enormous  spread  of 
antlers,  like  the  top  of  a  dead  cedar — these  in  turn 
fascinated  my  gaze.     How  graceful,  stately,  lordly ! 

R.  C.  stepped  out  from  behind  the  pine  in  full  view. 
I  crawled  out,  took  a  kneeling  position,  and  drew  a  bead 
on  the  elk.  I  had  the  fun  of  imagining  I  could  have  hit 
him  anywhere.  I  did  not  really  want  to  kill  him,  yet  what 
was  the  meaning  of  the  sharp,  hot  gush  of  my  blood,  the 
fiery  thrill  along  my  nerves,  the  feeling  of  unsatisfied 
wildness?  The  bull  eyed  us  for  a  second,  then  laid  his 
forest  of  antlers  back  over  his  shoulders,  and  with 
singularly  swift,  level  stride,  sped  like  a  tawny  flash  into 
the  green  forest. 

R.  C.  and  I  began  to  chatter  like  boys,  and  to  walk 
toward  the  glade,  without  any  particular  object  in  mind, 
when  my  roving  eye  caught  sight  of  a  moving  brown  and 
checkered  patch  low  down  on  the  ground,  vanishing 
behind  a  thicket.  I  called  R.  C.  and  ran.  I  got  to 
where  I  could  see  beyond  the  thicket.  An  immense 
flock  of  turkeys !  I  yelled.  As  I  tried  to  get  a  bead  on  a 
running  turkey  R.   C.   joined  me.     "Chase   'em!"  he 


264  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

yelled.  So  we  dashed  through  the  forest  with  the  tur- 
keys running  ahead  of  us.  Never  did  they  come  out 
clear  in  the  open.  I  halted  to  shoot,  but  just  as  I  was 
about  to  press  the  trigger  my  moving  target  vanished. 
This  happened  again.  No  use  to  shoot  at  random! 
I  had  a  third  fleeting  chance,  but  absolutely  could  not 
grasp  it.  Then  the  big  flock  of  turkeys  eluded  us  in 
an  impenetrable  brushy  ravine. 

"By  George!"  exclaimed  R.  C.  "Can  you  beat  that? 
They  run  like  streaks.  I  couldn't  aim.  These  wild 
turkeys  are  great." 

I  echoed  his  sentiments.  We  prowled  around  for  an  hour 
trying  to  locate  this  flock  again,  but  all  in  vain.  "Well," 
said  R.  C.  finally,  as  he  wiped  his  perspiring  face,  "it's 
good  to  see  some  game  anyhow.  .  .  .  Where  are  we?" 

It  developed  that  our  whereabouts  was  a  mystery  to 
me.  The  sun  had  become  completely  obliterated,  a  fine 
rain  was  falling,  the  forest  had  grown  wet  and  dismal. 
;  We  had  gotten  turned  around.  The  matter  did  not  look 
serious,  however,  until  we  had  wandered  around  for 
another  hour  without  finding  anything  familiar.  Then 
we  realized  we  were  lost.  This  sort  of  experience  had 
happened  to  R.  C.  and  me  often;  nevertheless  we  did 
not  relish  it,  especially  the  first  day  out.  As  usual  on 
such  occasions  R.  C.  argued  with  me  about  direction,  and 
then  left  the  responsibility  with  me.  I  found  an  open 
spot,  somewhat  sheltered  on  one  side  from  the  misty 
rain,  and  there  I  stationed  myself  to  study  trees  and  sky 
and  clouds  for  some  clue  to  help  me  decide  what  was 
north  or  west.  After  a  while  I  had  the  good  fortune  to 
see  a  momentary  brightening  through  the  clouds.  I 
located  the  sun,  and  was  pleased  to  discover  that  the 
instinct  of  direction  I  had  been  subtly  prompted  to  take 
would  have  helped  me  as  much  as  the  sun. 

We  faced  east  and  walked  fast,  and  I  took  note  of  trees 


TONTO  BASIN  265 

ahead  so  that  we  should  not  get  off  a  straight  line.  At 
last  we  came  to  a  deep  canyon.  In  the  gray  misty  rain 
I  could  not  be  sure  I  recognized  it.  ' '  Well,  R.  C. , "  I  said, 
"this  may  be  our  canyon,  and  it  may  not.  But  to  make 
sure  we'll  follow  it  up  to  the  rim.  Then  we  can  locate 
camp."  R.  C.  replied  with  weary  disdain.  "All  right, 
my  redskin  brother,  lead  me  to  camp.  As  Loren  says, 
I'm  starved  to  death."  Loren  is  my  three-year-old  boy, 
who  bids  fair  to  be  like  his  brother  Romer.  He  has  an 
enormous  appetite  and  before  meal  times  he  complains 
bitterly:  "I'm  starv-ved  to  death!"  How  strange  to 
remember  him  while  I  was  lost  in  the  forest ! 

When  we  had  descended  into  the  canyon  rain  was 
falling  more  heavily.  We  were  in  for  it.  But  I 
determined  we  would  not  be  kept  out  all  night.  So  I 
struck  forward  with  long  stride. 

In  half  an  hour  we  came  to  where  the  canyon  forked. 
I  deliberated  a  moment.  Not  one  familiar  landmark 
could  I  descry,  from  which  fact  I  decided  we  had  better 
take  to  the  left-hand  fork.  Grass  and  leaves  appeared 
almost  as  wet  as  running  water.  Soon  we  were  soaked 
to  the  skin.  After  two  miles  the  canyon  narrowed  and 
thickened,  so  that  traveling  grew  m.ore  and  more  labor- 
some.  It  must  have  been  four  miles  from  its  mouth  to 
where  it  headed  up  near  the  rim.  Once  out  of  it  we 
found  ourselves  on  familiar  ground,  about  five  miles  from 
camp.  Exhausted  and  wet  and  nearly  frozen  we  reached 
camp  just  before  dark.  If  I  had  taken  the  right-hand 
fork  of  the  canyon,  which  was  really  Beaver  Dam  Can- 
yon, we  would  have  gotten  back  to  camp  in  short  order. 
R.  C.  said  to  the  boys:  "Well,  Doc  dragged  me  nine 
miles  out  of  our  way."  Everybody  but  the  Jap  enjoyed 
my  discomfiture.  Takahashi  said  in  his  imperfect 
English :  "Go  get  on  more  better  dry  clothes.  Soon  hot 
supper.     Maybe  good  yes ! " 


266  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

V 

It  rained  the  following  day,  making  a  good  excuse  to 
stay  in  camp  and  rest  beside  the  little  tent-stove.  And 
the  next  morning  I  started  out  on  foot  with  Copple.  We 
went  down  Beaver  Dam  Canyon  intending  to  go  up  on 
the  ridge  where  R.  C.  and  I  had  seen  the  flock  of  turkeys. 

I  considered  Copple  an  addition  to  my  long  list  of  out- 
door acquaintances  in  the  west,  and  believed  him  a 
worthy  partner  for  Nielsen.  Copple  was  born  near  Oak 
Creek,  some  twenty  miles  south  of  Flagstaff,  and  was 
one-fourth  Indian.  He  had  a  good  education.  His 
whole  life  had  been  in  the  open,  which  fact  I  did  not  need 
to  be  told.  A  cowboy  when  only  a  boy  he  had  also  been 
sheepherder,  miner,  freighter,  and  everything  Arizonian. 
Eighteen  years  he  had  hunted  game  and  prospected  for 
gold  in  Mexico.  He  had  been  a  sailor  and  fireman  on  the 
Pacific,  he  had  served  in  the  army  in  the  Philippines. 
Altogether  his  had  been  an  adventurous  life ;  and  as  Doyle 
had  been  a  mine  of  memories  for  me  so  would  Copple  be 
a  mine  of  information.  Such  men  have  taught  me  the 
wonder,  the  violence,  the  truth  of  the  west. 

Copple  was  inclined  to  be  loquacious — a  trait  that 
ordinarily  was  rather  distasteful  to  me,  but  in  his  case 
would  be  an  advantage.  On  our  way  down  the  canyon 
not  only  did  he  give  me  an  outline  of  the  history  of  his 
life,  but  he  talked  about  how  he  had  foretold  the  storm 
just  ended.  The  fresh  diggings  of  gophers — little  mounds 
of  dirt  thrown  up — had  indicated  the  approach  of  the 
storm ;  so  had  the  hooting  of  owls ;  likewise  the  twittering 
of  snowbirds  at  that  season;  also  the  feeding  of  black- 
birds near  horses.  Particularly  a  wind  from  the  south 
meant  storm.  From  that  he  passed  to  a  discussion  of 
deer.  During  the  light  of  the  moon  deer  feed  at  night ; 
and  in  the  day  time  they  will  lie  in  a  thicket.     If  a 


TONTO  BASIN  267 

hunter  came  near  the  deer  would  lower  their  horns  flat 
and  remain  motionless,  unless  almost  ridden  over.  In 
the  dark  of  the  moon  deer  feed  at  early  morning,  lie  down 
during  the  day,  and  feed  again  toward  sunset,  always 
alert,  trusting  to  nose  more  than  eyes  and  ears. 

Copple  was  so  interesting  that  I  must  have  passed  the 
place  where  R.  C.  and  I  had  come  down  into  the  canyon ; 
at  any  rate  I  missed  it,  and  we  went  on  farther.  Copple 
showed  me  old  bear  sign,  an  old  wolf  track,  and  then 
fresh  turkey  tracks.  The  latter  reminded  me  that  we 
were  out  hunting.  I  could  carry  a  deadly  rifle  in  my 
hands,  yet  dream  dreams  of  flower-decked  Elysian  fields. 
We  climbed  a  wooded  bench  or  low  step  of  the  canyon 
slope,  and  though  Copple  and  I  were  side  by  side  I  saw 
two  turkeys  before  he  did.  They  were  running  swiftly 
up  hill.  I  took  a  snap  shot  at  the  lower  one,  but  missed. 
My  bullet  struck  low,  upsetting  him.  Both  of  them 
disappeared. 

Then  we  climbed  to  the  top  of  the  ridge,  and  in  scout- 
ing around  along  the  heavily  timbered  edges  we  came  to 
a  ravine  deep  enough  to  be  classed  as  a  canyon.  Here 
the  forest  was  dark  and  still,  with  sunlight  showing  down 
in  rays  and  gleams.  While  hunting  I  always  liked  to 
sit  down  here  and  there  to  listen  and  watch.  Copple 
liked  this  too.  So  we  sat  down.  Opposite  us  the  rocky 
edge  of  the  other  slope  was  about  two  hundred  yards. 
We  listened  to  jays  and  squirrels.  I  made  note  of  the 
significant  fact  that  as  soon  as  we  began  to  hunt  Copple 
became  silent. 

Presently  my  roving  eye  caught  sight  of  a  moving 
object.  It  is  movement  that  always  attracts  my  eye  in 
the  woods.  I  saw  a  plump,  woolly  beast  walk  out  upon 
the  edge  of  the  opposite  slope  and  stand  in  the  shade. 

"Copple,  is  that  a  sheep?"  I  whispered,  pointing. 
"Lion — no,  big  lynx,"  he  replied.     I  aimed  and  shot  just 


268  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

a  little  too  swiftly.  Judging  by  the  puff  of  dust  my  bullet 
barely  missed  the  big  cat.  He  leaped  fully  fifteen  feet. 
Copple  fired,  hitting  right  under  his  nose  as  he  alighted. 
That  whirled  him  back.  He  bounced  like  a  rubber 
ball.  My  second  shot  went  over  him,  and  Copple's  hit 
between  his  legs.  Then  with  another  prodigious  bound 
he  disappeared  in  a  thicket.  'By  golly!  we  missed  him," 
declared  Copple.  ' '  But  you  must  have  shaved  him  that 
first  time.     Biggest  lynx  I  ever  saw." 

We  crossed  the  canyon  and  hunted  for  him,  but  with- 
out success.  Then  we  climbed  an  open  grassy  forest 
slope,  up  to  a  level  ridge,  and  crossed  that  to  see  down 
into  a  beautiful  valley,  with  stately  isolated  pines,  and 
patches  of  aspens,  and  floor  of  luxuriant  grass.  A  ravine 
led  down  into  this  long  park  and  the  mouth  of  it  held  a 
thicket  of  small  pines.  Just  as  we  got  half  way  out  I  saw 
bobbing  black  objects  above  the  high  grass.  I  peered 
sharply.  These  objects  were  turkey  heads.  I  got  a  shot 
before  Copple  saw  them.  There  was  a  bouncing,  a 
whirring,  a  thumping — and  then  turkeys  appeared  to  be 
running  every  way. 

Copple  fired.  "Turkey  number  one!"  he  called  out. 
I  missed  a  big  gobbler  on  the  run.  Copple  shot  again. 
"Turkey  number  two!"  he  called  out.  I  could  not  see 
what  he  had  done,  but  of  course  I  knew  he  had  done 
execution.  It  roused  my  ire  as  well  as  a  desperate  ambi- 
tion. Turkeys  were  running  up  hill  everywhere.  I 
aimed  at  this  one,  then  at  that.  Again  I  fired.  Another 
miss!  How  that  gobbler  ran!  He  might  just  as  well 
have  flown.  Every  turkey  contrived  to  get  a  tree  or  bush 
between  him  and  me,  just  at  the  critical  instant.  In 
despair  I  tried  to  hold  on  the  last  one,  got  a  bead  on  it 
through  my  peep  sight,  moved  it  with  him  as  we  moved, 
and  holding  tight,  I  fired.  With  a  great  flop  and 
scattering  of  bronze  feathers  he  went  down.     I  ran  up 


TONTO  BASIN  269 

the  slope  and  secured  him,  a  fine  gobbler  of  about  fifteen 
pounds  weight. 

Upon  my  return  to  Copple  I  found  he  had  collected  his 
two  turkeys,  both  shot  in  the  neck  in  the  same  place. 
He  said :  "If  you  hit  them  in  the  body  you  spoil  them  for 
cooking.  I  used  to  hit  all  mine  in  the  head.  Let  me 
give  you  a  hunch.  Always  pick  out  a  turkey  running 
straight  away  from  you  or  straight  toward  you.  Never 
crossways.     You  can't  hit  them  running  to  the  side," 

Then  he  bluntly  complimented  me  upon  my  eyesight. 
That  at  least  was  consolation  for  my  poor  shooting. 
We  rested  there,  and  after  a  while  heard  a  turkey  cluck. 
Copple  had  no  turkey-caller,  but  he  clucked  anyhow. 
We  heard  answers.  The  flock  evidently  was  trying  to 
get  together  again,  and  some  of  them  were  approaching 
us.  Copple  continued  to  call.  Then  I  appreciated  how 
fascinating  R.  C.  had  found  this  calling  game.  Copple 
got  answers  from  all  around,  growing  closer.  But 
presently  the  answers  ceased.  "They're  on  to  me,"  he 
whispered  and  did  not  call  again.  At  that  moment  a 
young  gobbler  ran  swiftly  down  the  slope  and  stopped  to 
peer  around,  his  long  neck  stretching.  It  was  not  a  very 
long  shot,  and  I,  scorning  to  do  less  than  Copple,  tried  to 
emulate  him,  and  aimed  at  the  neck  of  the  gobbler. 
All  I  got,  however,  was  a  few  feathers.  Like  a  grouse  he 
flew  across  the  opening  and  was  gone.  We  lingered  there 
a  while,  hoping  to  see  or  hear  more  of  the  flock,  but  did 
neither.  Copple  tried  to  teach  me  how  to  tell  the  age  of 
turkeys  from  their  feet,  a  lesson  I  did  not  think  I  would 
assimilate  in  one  hunting  season.  He  tied  their  legs 
together  and  hung  them  over  his  shoulder,  a  net  weight 
of  about  fifty  pounds. 

All  the  way  up  that  valley  we  saw  elk  tracks,  and  once 
from  over  the  ridge  I  heard  a  bugle.  On  our  return  toward 
camp  we  followed  a  rather  meandering  course,  over  ridge 


270  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

and  down  dale,  and  through  grassy  parks  and  stately 
forests,  and  along  the  slowly  coloring  maple-aspen  thick- 
ets. Copple  claimed  to  hear  deer  running,  but  I  did  not. 
Many  tired  footsteps  I  dragged  along  before  we  finally 
reached  Beaver  Dam  Canyon.  How  welcome  the  sight 
of  camp !  R.  C.  had  ridden  miles  with  Edd,  and  had  seen 
one  deer  that  they  said  was  still  enjoying  his  freedom  in 
the  woods.  Takahashi  hailed  sight  of  the  turkeys  with : 
' '  That  fine !    That  fine !     Nice  fat  ones ! ' ' 

But  tired  as  I  was  that  night  I  still  had  enthusiasm 
enough  to  visit  Haught's  camp,  and  renew  acquaintance 
with  the  hounds.  Haught  had  not  been  able  to  secure 
more  than  two  new  hounds,  and  these  named  Rock  and 
Buck  were  still  unknown  quantities. 

Old  Dan  remembered  me,  and  my  heart  warmed  to  the 
old  gladiator.  He  was  a  very  big,  large-boned  hound, 
gray  with  age  and  wrinkled  and  lame,  and  bleary-eyed. 
Dan  was  too  old  to  be  put  on  trails,  or  at  least  to  be  made 
chase  bear.  He  loved  a  camp-fire,  and  would  almost  sit 
in  the  flames.  This  fact,  and  the  way  he  would  beg  for 
a  morsel  to  eat,  had  endeared  him  to  me. 

Old  Tom  was  somewhat  smaller  and  leaner  than  Dan, 
yet  resembled  him  enough  to  deceive  us  at  times,  Tom 
was  gray,  too,  and  had  crinkly  ears,  and  many  other 
honorable  battle-scars.  Tom  was  not  quite  so  friendly 
as  Dan ;  in  fact  he  had  more  dignity.  Still  neither  hound 
was  ever  demonstrative  except  upon  sight  of  his  master. 
Haught  told  me  that  if  Dan  and  Tom  saw  him  shoot  at  a 
deer  they  would  chase  it  till  they  dropped ;  accordingly 
he  never  shot  at  anything  except  bear  and  lion  when  he 
had  these  hounds  with  him. 

Sue  was  the  best  hound  in  the  pack,  as  she  still  had,  in 
spite  of  years  of  service,  a  good  deal  of  speed  and  fight 
left  in  her.  She  was  a  slim,  dark  brown  hound  with  fine 
and  very  long  ears.     Rock,  one  of  tho  new  hounds  from 


TONTO  BASIN  271 

Kentucky,  was  white  and  black,  and  had  remarkably 
large,  clear  and  beautiful  eyes,  almost  human  in  expres- 
sion. I  could  not  account  for  the  fact  that  I  suspected 
Rock  was  a  deer  chaser.  Buck,  the  other  hound  from 
Kentucky,  was  no  longer  young;  he  had  a  stump  tail; 
his  color  was  a  little  yellow  with  dark  spots,  and  he  had  a 
hang-dog  head  and  distrustful  eye.  I  made  certain  that 
Buck  had  never  had  any  friends,  for  he  did  not  under- 
stand kindness.  Nor  had  he  ever  had  enough  to  eat. 
He  stayed  away  from  the  rest  of  the  pack  and  growled 
fiercely  when  a  pup  came  near  him.  I  tried  to  make 
friends  with  him,  but  found  that  I  would  not  have  an 
easy  task. 

Kaiser  Bill  was  one  of  the  pups,  black  in  color,  a  long, 
lean,  hungry -looking  dog,  and  crazy.  He  had  not  grown 
any  in  a  year,  either  in  body  or  intelligence.  I  remem- 
bered how  he  would  yelp  just  to  hear  himself  and  run  any 
kind  of  a  trail — how  he  would  be  the  first  to  quit  and 
come  back.  And  if  any  one  fired  a  gun  near  him  he 
would  run  like  a  scared  deer. 

To  be  fair  to  Kaiser  Bill  the  other  pups  were  not  much 
better.  Trailer  and  Big  Foot  were  young  still,  and  about 
all  they  could  do  was  to  run  and  howl. 

If,  however,  they  got  off  right  on  a  bear  trail,  and  no 
other  trail  crossed  it  they  would  stick,  and  in  fact  lead 
the  pack  till  the  bear  got  away.  Once  Big  Foot  came 
whimpering  into  camp  with  porcupine  quills  in  his  nose. 
Of  all  the  whipped  and  funny  pups ! 

Bobby  was  the  dog  I  liked  best.  He  was  a  curly  black 
half -shepherd,  small  in  size;  and  he  had  a  sharp,  intelli- 
gent face,  with  the  brightest  hazel  eyes.  His  manner  of 
wagging  his  tail  seemed  most  comical  yet  convincing. 
Bobby  wagged  only  the  nether  end  and  that  most 
emphatically.  He  would  stand  up  to  me,  holding  out 
his  forepaws,  and  beg.     What  an  appealing  beggar  he 


2/2  ,  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

was!  Bobby's  value  to  Haught  was  not  inconsiderable. 
He  was  the  only  dog  Haught  ever  had  that  would  herd 
the  pigs.  On  a  bear  hunt  Bobby  lost  his  shepherd  ways 
and  his  kindly  disposition,  and  yelped  fiercely,  and  hung 
on  a  trail  as  long  as  any  of  the  pack.  He  had  no  fear  of 
a  bear,  for  which  reason  Haught  did  not  like  to  run  him. 

All  told  then  we  had  a  rather  nondescript  and  poor 
pack  of  hounds ;  and  the  fact  discouraged  me.  I  wanted 
to  hunt  the  bad  cinnamons  and  the  grizzly  sheep-killers, 
with  which  this  rim-rock  country  was  infested.  I  had 
nothing  against  the  acorn-eating  brown  or  black  bears. 
And  with  this  pack  of  hounds  I  doubted  that  we  could 
hold  one  of  the  vicious  fighting  species.  But  there  was 
now  nothing  to  do  but  try.  No  one  could  tell.  We 
might  kill  a  big  grizzly.  And  the  fact  that  the  chances 
were  against  us  perhaps  made  for  more  determined  effort. 
I  regretted,  however,  that  I  had  not  secured  a  pack  of 
trained  hounds  somewhere. 

Frost  was  late  this  fall.  The  acorns  had  hardly 
ripened,  the  leaves  had  scarcely  colored;  and  really  good 
bear  hunting  seemed  weeks  off.  A  storm  and  then  a  cold 
snap  would  help  matters  wonderfully,  and  for  these  we 
hoped.  Indeed  the  weather  had  not  settled;  hardly  a 
day  had  been  free  of  clouds.  But  despite  conditions  we 
decided  to  start  in  bear  hunting  every  other  day,  feeling 
that  at  least  we  could  train  the  pack,  and  get  them  and  our- 
selves in  better  shape  for  a  favorable  time  when  it  arrived. 

Accordingly  next  day  we  sallied  forth  for  Horton 
Thicket,  and  I  went  down  with  Edd  and  George.  It  was 
a  fine  day,  sunny  and  windy  at  intervals.  The  new  trail 
the  boys  had  made  was  boggy.  From  above  Horton 
Thicket  looked  dark,  green,  verdant,  with  scarcely  any 
touch  of  autumn  colors ;  from  below,  once  in  it,  all  seemed 
a  darker  green,  cool  and  damp.  Water  lay  in  all  low 
places.     The  creek  roared  bankfull  of  clear  water. 


TONTO  BASIN  273 

The  new  trail  led  up  and  down  over  dark  red  rich 
earth,  through  thickets  of  jack-pine  and  maple,  and  then 
across  long  slopes  of  manzanita  and  juniper,  mescal  and 
oak.  Junipers  were  not  fruitful  this  year  as  they  were 
last,  only  a  few  having  clusters  of  lavender-colored  ber- 
ries. The  manzanita  brush  appeared  exceptionally  beau- 
tiful with  its  vivid  contrasts  of  crimson  and  green  leaves, 
orange-colored  berries,  and  smooth,  vshiny  bark  of  a  choco- 
late red.  The  mescal  consisted  of  round  patches  of 
cactus  with  spear-shaped  leaves,  low  on  the  ground,  with 
a  long  dead  stalk  standing  or  broken  down.  This  stalk 
grows  fresh  every  spring,  when  it  is  laden  with  beautiful 
yellow  blossoms.  The  honey  from  the  flowers  of  mescal 
and  mesquite  is  the  best  to  be  obtained  in  this  country 
of  innumerable  bees. 

Presently  the  hounds  opened  up  on  some  kind  of  a 
trail  and  they  worked  on  it  around  under  the  ledges 
toward  the  next  canyon,  called  See  Canyon.  After  a 
while  the  country  grew  so  rough  that  fast  riding  was  im- 
possible ;  the  thickets  tore  and  clutched  at  us  until  they 
finally  stopped  the  horses.  We  got  off.  Edd  climbed 
to  a  ridge-top.  "Pack  gone  way  round,"  he  called. 
"I'll  walk.  Take  my  horse  back."  I  decided  to  let 
George  take  my  horse  also,  and  I  hurried  to  catch  up  with 
Edd. 

Following  that  long-legged  Arizonian  on  foot  was 
almost  as  strenuous  as  keeping  him  in  sight  on  horseback. 
I  managed  it.  We  climbed  steep  slopes  and  the  farther 
we  climbed  the  thicker  grew  the  brush.  Often  we  would 
halt  to  listen  for  hounds,  at  which  welcome  intervals  I 
endeavored  to  catch  my  breath.  We  kept  the  hounds  in 
hearing,  which  fact  incited  us  to  renewed  endeavors. 
At  length  we  got  into  a  belt  of  live-oak  and  scrub-pine 
brush,  almost  as  difficult  to  penetrate  as  manzanita,  and 
here  we  had  to  bend  and  crawl.     Bear  and  deer  tracks 


274  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

led  everywhere.  Small  stones  and  large  stones  had  been 
lifted  and  displaced  by  bears  searching  for  grubs.  These 
slopes  were  dry;  we  found  no  water  at  the  heads  of  ra- 
vines, yet  the  red  earth  was  rich  in  bearded,  tufted  grass, 
yellow  daisies  and  purple  asters,  and  a  wan  blue  flower. 
We  climbed  and  climbed,  until  my  back  began  to  give 
me  trouble.  "Reckon  we — bit  off — a  big  hunk,"  re- 
marked Edd  once,  and  I  thought  he  referred  to  the  end- 
less steep  and  brushy  slopes.  By  and  bye  the  hounds 
came  back  to  us  one  by  one,  all  footsore  and  weary. 
Manifestly  the  bear  had  outrun  them.  Our  best  pros- 
pect then  was  to  climb  on  to  the  rim  and  strike  across  the 
forest  to  camp. 

I  noticed  that  tired  as  I  was  I  had  less  trouble  to  keep 
up  with  Edd.  His  boots  wore  very  slippery  on  grass  and 
pine-needles,  so  that  he  might  have  been  trying  to  climb 
on  ice.  I  had  nails  in  my  boots  and  they  caught  hold. 
Hotter  and  wetter  I  grew  until  I  had  a  burning  sensation 
all  over.  My  legs  and  arms  ached;  the  rifle  weighed  a 
ton ;  my  feet  seemed  to  take  hold  of  the  ground  and  stick. 
We  could  not  go  straight  up  owing  to  the  nature  of  that 
jumble  of  broken  cliffs  and  matted  scrub  forests.  For 
hours  we  toiled  onward,  upward,  downward,  and  then 
upward.  Only  through  such  experience  could  I  have 
gained  an  adequate  knowledge  of  the  roughness  and  vast- 
ness  of  this  rim-rock  country. 

At  last  we  arrived  at  the  base  of  the  gray  leaning  crags, 
and  there,  on  a  long  slide  of  weathered  rock  the  hounds 
jumped  a  bear.  I  saw  the  dust  he  raised,  as  he  piled  into 
the  thicket  below  the  slide.  What  a  wild  clamor  from 
the  hounds!  We  got  out  on  the  rocky  slope  where  we 
could  see  and  kept  sharp  eyes  roving,  but  the  bear  went 
straight  down  hill.  Amazing  indeed  was  it  the  way  the 
hounds  drew  away  from  us.  In  a  few  moments  they  were 
at  the  foot  of  the  slopes,  tearing  back  over  the  course  we 


TONTO  BASIN  275 

had  been  so  many  hours  in  coming.  Then  we  set  out  to 
get  on  the  rim,  so  as  to  follow  along  it,  and  keep  track  of 
the  chase.  Edd  distanced  me  on  the  rocks.  I  had  to 
stop  often.  My  breast  labored  and  I  could  scarcely 
breathe.  I  sweat  so  freely  that  my  rifle  stock  was  wet. 
My  hardest  battle  was  in  fighting  a  tendency  to  utter 
weariness  and  disgust.  My  old  poignant  feelings  about 
my  physical  condition  returned  to  vex  me.  As  a  matter 
of  fact  I  had  already  that  very  day  accomplished  a  climb 
not  at  all  easy  for  the  Arizonian,  and  I  should  have  been 
happy.  But  I  had  not  been  used  to  a  lame  back.  When 
I  reached  the  rim  I  fell  there,  and  lay  there  a  few  mo- 
ments, until  I  could  get  up.  Then  I  followed  along  after 
Edd  whose  yells  to  the  hounds  I  heard,  and  overtook  him 
upon  the  point  of  a  promontory.  Far  below  the  hounds 
were  baying.  "They're  chasin'  him  all  right,"  declared 
Edd,  grimly.  "He's  headin'  for  low  country.  I  think 
Sue  stopped  him  once.  But  the  rest  of  the  pack  are 
behind." 

I  had  never  been  on  the  point  of  this  promontory. 
Grand  indeed  was  the  panorama.  Under  me  yawned  a 
dark-green,  smoky-cany oned,  rippling  basin  of  timber 
and  red  rocks  leading  away  to  the  mountain  ranges  of  the 
Four  Peaks  and  Mazatzals.  Westward,  toward  the 
yellowing  sunset  stood  out  long  escarpments  for  miles, 
and  long  sloping  lines  of  black  ridges,  leading  down  to 
the  basin  where  there  seemed  to  be  a  ripple  of  the  earth, 
a  vast  upset  region  of  canyon  and  ridge,  wild  and  lonely 
and  dark. 

I  did  not  get  to  see  the  sunset  from  that  wonderful 
point,  a  matter  I  regretted.  We  were  far  from  camp,  and 
Edd  was  not  sure  of  a  bee-line  during  daylight,  let  alone 
after  dark.  Deep  in  the  forest  the  sunset  gold  and  red 
burned  on  grass  and  leaf.  The  aspens  took  most  of  the 
color.     Swift-flying  wisps  of  cloud  turned  pink,  and  low 


276  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

along  the  western  horizon  of  the  forest  the  Hght  seemed 
golden  and  blue. 

I  was  almost  exhausted,  and  by  the  time  we  reached 
camp,  just  at  dark,  I  was  wholly  exhausted.  My  voice 
had  sunk  to  a  whisper,  a  fact  that  occasioned  R.  C.  some 
concern  until  I  could  explain.  Undoubtedly  this  was  the 
hardest  day's  work  I  had  done  since  my  lion  hunting  with 
Buffalo  Jones.  It  did  not  surprise  me  that  next  day  I 
had  to  forget  my  crosscut  saw  exercise. 

Late  that  afternoon  the  hounds  came  straggling  into 
camp,  lame  and  starved.  Sue  was  the  last  one  in,  arriv- 
ing at  supper-time. 

Another  day  found  me  still  sore,  but  able  to  ride,  and 
R.  C.  and  I  went  off  into  the  woods  in  search  of  any  kind 
of  adventure.  This  day  was  cloudy  and  threatening, 
with  spells  of  sunshine.  We  saw  two  bull  elk,  a  cow  and 
a  calf.  The  bulls  appeared  remarkably  agile  for  so 
heavy  an  animal.  Neither  of  these,  however,  were  of 
such  magnificent  proportions  as  the  one  R.  C.  and  I  had 
stalked  the  first  day  out.  A  few  minutes  later  we  scared 
out  three  more  cows  and  three  yearlings.  I  dismounted 
just  for  fun,  and  sighted  my  rifle  at  four  of  them.  Next 
we  came  to  a  canyon  where  beaver  had  cut  aspen  trees. 
These  animals  must  have  chisel-like  teeth.  They  left 
chippings  somewhat  similar  to  those  cut  by  an  axe. 
Aspen  bark  was  their  winter  food.  In  this  particular 
spot  we  could  not  find  a  dam  or  slide.  When  we  rode 
down  into  Turkey  Canyon,  however,  we  found  a  place 
where  beavers  had  dammed  the  brook.  Many  aspens 
were  fresh  cut,  one  at  least  two  feet  thick,  and  all  the 
small  branches  had  been  cut  off  and  dragged  to  the  water, 
where  I  could  find  no  further  trace  of  them.  The  grass 
was  matted  down,  and  on  the  bare  bits  of  ground  showed 
beaver  tracks. 

Game  appeared  to  be  scarce.     Haught  had  told  us  that 


WHERE    BEAR    CROSS    THE    RIDGE    FROM    ONE    CANYON    TO    ANOTHER 


CLIMBING   OVER   THE   TOUGH    MANZANITA 


TONTO  BASIN  277 

deer,  turkey  and  bear  had  all  gone  to  feed  on  the  mast 
(fallen  acorns) ;  and  if  we  could  locate  the  mast  we  would 
find  the  game.  He  said  he  had  once  seen  a  herd  of 
several  hundred  deer  migrating  from  one  section  of  coun- 
try to  another.  Apparently  this  was  to  find  new  feeding 
grounds. 

While  we  were  resting  under  a  spruce  I  espied  a  white- 
breasted,  blue-headed,  gray-backed  little  bird  at  work 
on  a  pine  tree.  He  walked  head  first  down  the  bark, 
pecking  here  and  there.  I  saw  a  moth  or  a  winged  insect 
fly  off  the  tree,  and  then  another.  Then  I  saw  several 
more  fly  away.  The  bird  was  feeding  on  winged  insects 
that  lived  in  the  bark.  Some  of  them  saw  or  heard  him 
coming  and  escaped,  but  many  of  them  he  caught.  He 
went  about  this  death-dealing  business  with  a  brisk  and 
cheerful  manner.  No  doubt  nature  had  developed  him 
to  help  protect  the  trees  from  bugs  and  worms  and  beetles. 

Later  that  day,  in  an  open  grassy  canyon,  we  came 
upon  quite  a  large  bird,  near  the  size  of  a  pigeon,  which 
I  thought  appeared  to  be  a  species  of  jay  or  magpie. 
This  bird  had  gray  and  black  colors,  a  round  head,  and  a 
stout  bill.  At  first  I  thought  it  was  crippled,  as  it  hopped 
and  fluttered  about  in  the  grass.  I  got  down  to  catch  it. 
Then  I  discovered  it  was  only  tame.  I  could  approach 
to  within  a  foot  of  reaching  it.  Once  it  perched  upon  a 
low  snag,  and  peeped  at  me  with  little  bright  dark  eyes, 
very  friendly,  as  if  he  liked  my  company.  I  sat  there 
within  a  few  feet  of  him  for  quite  a  while.  We  resumed 
our  ride.  Crossing  a  fresh  buck  track  caused  us  to  dis- 
mount, and  tie  our  horses.  But  that  buck  was  too  wary 
for  us.  We  returned  to  camp  as  usual,  empty  handed  as 
far  as  game  was  concerned. 

I  forgot  to  say  anything  to  Haught  or  Doyle  about  the 
black  and  gray  bird  that  had  so  interested  me.  Quite  a 
coincidence  was  it  then  to  see  another  such  bird  and  that 
19 


278  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

one  right  in  camp.  He  appeared  to  be  as  tame  as  the 
other.  He  flew  and  hopped  around  camp  in  such  a 
friendly  manner  that  I  placed  a  piece  of  meat  in  a  con- 
spicuous place  for  him.  Not  long  was  he  in  finding  it. 
He  alighted  on  it,  and  pecked  and  pulled  at  a  great  rate. 
Doyle  claimed  it  was  a  Clark  crow,  named  after  one  of 
the  Lewis  and  Clark  expedition.  "It's  a  rare  bird,"  said 
Doyle.  ' '  First  one  I ' ve  seen  in  thirty  years. ' '  As  Doyle 
spent  most  of  his  time  in  the  open  this  statement  seemed 
rather  remarkable. 

We  had  frost  on  two  mornings,  temperature  as  low  as 
twenty-six  degrees,  and  then  another  change  indicative 
of  unsettled  weather.  It  rained,  and  sleeted,  and  then 
snowed,  but  the  ground  was  too  wet  to  hold  the  snow. 

The  wilderness  began  all  at  once,  as  if  by  magic,  to 
take  on  autumn  colors.  Then  the  forest  became  an 
enchanted  region  of  white  aspens,  golden-green  aspens, 
purple  spruces,  dark  green  pines,  maples  a  blaze  of  ver- 
milion, cerise,  scarlet,  magenta,  rose — and  slopes  of  dull 
red  sumac.  These  were  the  beginning  of  Indian  sum- 
mer days,  the  melancholy  days,  with  their  color  and  si- 
lence and  beauty  and  fragrance  and  mystery. 

Hunting  then  became  quite  a  dream  for  me,  as  if  it 
called  back  to  me  dim  mystic  days  in  the  woods  of  some 
past  weird  world.  One  afternoon  Copple,  R.  C,  and  I 
went  as  far  as  the  east  side  of  Gentry  Canyon  and  worked 
down.  Copple  found  fresh  deer  and  turkey  sign.  We 
tied  our  horses,  and  slipped  back  against  the  wind. 
R.  C.  took  one  side  of  a  ridge,  with  Copple  and  me  on  the 
other,  and  we  worked  down  toward  where  we  had  seen 
the  sign.  After  half  an  hour  of  slow,  stealthy  glide 
through  the  forest  we  sat  down  at  the  edge  of  a  park, 
expecting  R.  C.  to  come  along  soon.  The  white  aspens 
were  all  bare,  and  oak  leaves  were  rustling  down.  The 
wind  luUed  a  while,  then  softly  roared  in  the  pines.     All 


TONTO  BASIN  279 

at  once  both  of  us  heard  a  stick  crack,  and  light  steps  of 
a  walking  deer  on  leaves.  Copple  whispered:  "Get 
ready  to  shoot,"  We  waited,  keen  and  tight,  expecting 
to  see  a  deer  walk  out  into  the  open.  But  none  came. 
Leaving  our  stand  we  slipped  into  the  woods,  careful  not 
to  make  the  slightest  sound.  Such  careful,  slow  steps 
were  certainly  not  accountable  for  the  rapid  beat  of  my 
heart.  Something  gray  moved  among  the  green  and 
yellow  leaves.  I  halted,  and  held  Copple  back.  Then 
not  twenty  paces  away  I  descried  what  I  thought  was  a 
fawn.  It  glided  toward  us  without  the  slightest  sound. 
Suddenly,  half  emerging  from  some  maple  saplings,  it 
saw  us  and  seemed  stricken  to  stone.  Not  ten  steps  from 
me!  Soft  gray  hue,  slender  graceful  neck  and  body, 
sleek  small  head  with  long  ears,  and  great  dark  distended 
eyes,  wilder  than  any  wild  eyes  I  had  ever  beheld.  I  saw 
it  quiver  all  over.  I  was  quivering  too,  but  with  emotion. 
Copple  whispered :  "Yearlin' buck.     Shoot!" 

His  whisper,  low  as  it  was,  made  the  deer  leap  like  a 
gray  flash.  Also  it  broke  the  spell  for  me.  "Year  old 
buck!"  I  exclaimed,  quite  loud.  "Thought  he  was  a 
fawn.     But  I  couldn't  have  shot " 

A  crash  of  brush  interrupted  me.  Thump  of  hoofs, 
crack  of  branches — then  a  big  buck  deer  bounded  on- 
ward into  the  thicket.  I  got  one  snap  shot  at  his 
fleeting  blurred  image  and  missed  him.  We  ran  ahead, 
but  to  no  avail. 

"Four-point  buck,"  said  Copple.  "He  must  have 
been  standin'  behind  that  brush." 

"Did  you  see  his  horns?"   I  gasped,  incredulously. 

'  *  Sure.  But  he  was  runnin'  some.  Let's  go  down  this 
slope  where  he  jumped.  .  .  .  Now  will  you  look  at  that ! 
Here's  where  he  started  after  you  shot." 

A  gentle  slope,  rather  open,  led  down  to  the  thicket 
where  the  buck  had  vanished.     We  measured  the  first 


28o  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

of  his  downhill  jumps,  and  it  amounted  to  eighteen  of 
my  rather  short  steps.  What  a  magnificent  leap!  It 
reminded  me  of  the  story  of  Hart-leap  Well. 

As  we  retraced  our  steps  R.  C.  met  us,  reporting  that 
he  had  heard  the  buck  running,  but  could  not  see  him. 
We  scouted  around  together  for  an  hour,  then  R.  C.  and 
Copple  started  off  on  a  wide  detour,  leaving  me  at  a 
stand  in  the  hope  they  might  drive  some  turkeys  my  way. 
I  sat  on  a  log  until  almost  sunset.  All  the  pine  tips 
turned  gold  and  patches  of  gold  brightened  the  ground. 
Jays  were  squalling,  gray  squirrels  were  barking,  red 
squirrels  were  chattering,  snowbirds  were  twittering, 
pine  cones  were  dropping,  leaves  were  rustling.  But 
there  were  no  turkeys,  and  I  did  not  miss  them.  R.  C. 
and  Copple  returned  to  tell  me  there  were  signs  of  turkeys 
and  deer  all  over  the  ridge.  "We'll  ride  over  here  early 
to-morrow,"  said  Copple,  "an'  I'll  bet  my  gun  we  pack 
some  meat  to  camp." 

But  the  unsettled  weather  claimed  the  next  day  and 
the  next,  giving  us  spells  of  rain  and  sleet,  and  periods  of 
sunshine  deceptive  in  their  promise.  Camp,  however, 
with  our  big  camp-fire,  and  little  tent-stoves,  and  Taka- 
hashi,  would  have  been  delightful  in  almost  any  weather. 
Takahashi  was  insulted,  the  boys  told  me,  because  I  said 
he  was  born  to  be  a  cook.  It  seemed  the  Jap  looked 
down  upon  this  culinary  job.  "Cook — that  woman 
joob!"   he  said,  contemptuously. 

As  I  became  better  acquainted  with  Takahashi  I  learned 
to  think  more  of  the  Japanese.  I  studied  Takahashi  very 
earnestly  and  I  grew  to  like  him.  The  Orientals  are 
mystics  and  hard  to  understand.  But  any  one  could  see 
that  here  was  a  Japanese  who  was  a  real  man.  I  never 
saw  him  idle.  He  resented  being  told  what  to  do,  and 
after  my  first  offense  in  this  regard  I  never  gave  him 
another  order.     He  was  a  wonderful  cook.     It  pleased 


TONTO  BASIN  281 

his  vanity  to  see  how  good  an  appetite  I  always  had. 
When  I  would  hail  him :  ' '  George,  what  you  got  to  eat  ? " 
he  would  grin  and  reply:  "Aw,  turkee!"  Then  I  would 
let  out  a  yell,  for  I  never  in  my  life  tasted  anything  so 
good  as  the  roast  wild  turkey  Takahashi  served  us.  Or 
he  would  say:  "Pan-cakes — apple  dumplings — rice  pud- 
dings." No  one  but  the  Japs  know  how  to  cook  rice. 
I  asked  him  how  he  cooked  rice  over  an  open  fire  and  he 
said :  "I  know  how  hot — when  done. ' '  Takahashi  must 
have  possessed  an  uncanny  knowledge  of  the  effects  of 
heat.  How  swift,  clean,  efficient  and  saving  he  was! 
He  never  wasted  anything.  In  these  days  of  American 
prodigality  a  frugal  cook  like  Takahashi  was  a  revelation. 
Seldom  are  the  real  producers  of  food  ever  wasters. 
Takahashi's  ambition  v/as  to  be  a  rancher  in  California. 
I  learned  many  things  about  him.  In  summer  he  went 
to  the  Imperial  Valley  where  he  picked  and  packed 
cantaloupes.  He  could  stand  the  intense  heat.  He  was 
an  expert.  He  commanded  the  highest  wage.  Then  he 
was  a  raisin-picker,  which  for  him  v/as  another  art.  He 
had  accumulated  a  little  fortune  and  knew  how  to  save 
his  money.  He  would  have  been  a  millionaire  in  Japan, 
but  he  intended  to  live  in  the  United  States. 

Takahashi  had  that  best  of  traits — generosity.  When- 
ever he  made  pie  or  cake  or  doughnuts  he  always  saved 
his  share  for  me  to  have  for  my  lunch  next  day.  No  use 
to  try  to  break  him  of  this  kindly  habit !  He  was  keen 
too,  and  held  in  particular  disfavor  any  one  who  picked 
out  the  best  portions  of  turkey  or  meat.  ' ' No  like  that," 
he  would  say;  and  I  heartily  agreed  with  him.  Life  in 
the  open  brought  out  the  little  miserable  traits  of  human 
nature,  of  which  no  one  was  absolutely  free. 

I  admired  Takahashi's  cooking,  I  admired  the  enor- 
mous pile  of  firewood  he  always  had  chopped,  I  admired 
his  generosity ;  but  most  of  all  I  liked  his  cheerfulness  and 


282  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

good  humor.  He  grew  to  be  a  joy  to  me.  We  had  some 
pop  corn  which  we  sometimes  popped  over  the  camp- 
fire.  He  was  fond  of  it  and  he  said :  ' '  You  eat  all  time — 
much  pop  com — just  so  long  you  keep  mouth  going  all 
same  like  horse — you  happy. "  We  were  troubled  a  good 
deal  by  skunks.  Now  some  skunks  were  not  bad  neigh- 
bors, but  others  were  disgusting  and  dangerous.  The 
hog-nosed  skunk,  according  to  westerners,  very  often  had 
hydrophobia  and  would  bite  a  sleeper.  I  knew  of  several 
men  dying  of  rabies  from  this  bite.  Copple  said  he  had 
been  awakened  twice  at  night  by  skunks  biting  the  noses 
of  his  companions  in  camp.  Copple  had  to  choke  the 
skunks  off.  One  of  these  men  died.  We  were  really 
afraid  of  them.  Doyle  said  one  had  visited  him  in  his 
tent  and  he  had  been  forced  to  cover  his  head  until  he 
nearly  smothered.  Now  Takahashi  slept  in  the  tent 
with  the  store  of  supplies.  One  night  a  skunk  awakened 
him.  In  reporting  this  to  me  the  Jap  said :  "See  skunk 
all  black  and  white  at  tent  door.  I  flash  light.  Skunk 
no  'fraid.    He  no  run.    He  act  funny — then  just  walk  off. ' ' 

After  that  experience  Takahashi  set  a  box-trap  for 
skunks.  One  morning  he  said  with  a  huge  grin:  "I 
catch  skunk.  Want  you  take  picture  for  me  send  my 
w^fe  Sadayo." 

So  I  got  my  camera,  and  being  careful  to  take  a  safe 
position,  as  did  all  the  boys,  I  told  Takahashi  I  was  ready 
to  photograph  him  and  his  skunk.  He  got  a  pole  that 
was  too  short  to  suit  me,  and  he  lifted  up  the  box-trap. 
A  furry  white  and  black  cat  appeared,  with  remarkably 
bushy  tail.  What  a  beautiful  little  animal  to  bear  such 
opprobrium!  "All  same  like  cat,"  said  Takahashi. 
"Kittee — kittee."  It  appeared  that  kitty  was  not  in 
the  least  afraid.  On  the  contrary  she  surveyed  the  for- 
midable Jap  with  his  pole,  and  her  other  enemies  in  a 
calm,  dignified  manner.    Then  she  turned  away.    Here 


TONTO  BASIN  283 

I  tried  to  photograph  her  and  Takahashi  together. 
When  she  started  off  the  Jap  followed  and  poked  her 
with  the  pole.  "Take  'nother  picture."  But  kitty 
suddenly  whirled,  with  fur  and  tail  erect,  a  most  sur- 
prising and  brave  and  assured  front,  then  ran  at  Taka- 
hashi. I  yelled:  "Run  George!"  Pell-mell  everybody 
fled  from  that  beautiful  little  beast.  We  were  arrant 
cowards.  But  Takahashi  grasped  up  another  and  longer 
pole,  and  charged  back  at  kitty.  This  time  he  chased 
her  out  of  camp.  When  he  returned  his  face  was  a  study : 
' '  Nashty  thing !  She  make  awful  stink !  She  no  'fraid 
a  tall.     Next  time  I  kill  her  sure!" 

The  head  of  Gentry  Canyon  was  about  five  miles  from 
camp,  and  we  reached  it  the  following  morning  while  the 
frost  was  still  white  and  sparkling.  We  tied  our  horses. 
Copple  said :  "This  is  a  deer  day.  I'll  show  you  a  buck 
sure.     Let's  stick'  together  an'  walk  easy." 

So  we  made  sure'  to  work  against  the  wind,  which,  how- 
ever, was  so  light  as  almost  to  be  imperceptible,  and  stole 
along  the  dark  ravine,  taking  half  a  dozen  steps  or  so  at 
a  time.  How  still  the  forest !  When  it  was  like  this  I 
always  felt  as  if  I  had  discovered  something  new.  The 
big  trees  loomed  stately  and  calm,  stretching  a  rugged 
network  of  branches  over  us.  Fortunately  no  saucy 
squirrels  or  squalling  jays  appeared  to  be  abroad  to  warn 
game  of  our  approach.  Not  only  a  tang,  but  a  thrill, 
seemed  to  come  pervasively  on  the  cool  air.  All  the 
colors  of  autumn  were  at  their  height,  and  gorgeous  plots 
of  maple  thicket  and  sumac  burned  against  the  brown 
and  green.  We  slipped  along,  each  of  us  strung  to  be  the 
first  to  hear  or*  see  some  living  creature  of  the  wild.  R. 
C,  as  might  have  been  expected,  halted  us  with  a  softly 
whispered:  "Listen."  But  neither  Copple  nor  I  heard 
what  R.  C.  heard,  and  presently  we  moved  on  as  before. 
Presently  again  R.  C.  made  us  pause,  with  a  like  result. 


284  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

Somehow  the  forest  seemed  unusually  wild.  It  provoked 
a  tingling  expectation.  The  pine-covered  slope  ahead  of 
us,  the  thicketed  ridge  to  our  left,  the  dark,  widening 
ravine  to  our  right,  all  seemed  to  harbor  listening,  watch- 
ing, soft-footed  denizens  of  the  wild.  At  length  we 
reached  a  level  bench,  beautifully  forested,  where  the 
ridge  ran  down  in  points  to  where  the  junction  of  several 
ravines  formed  the  head  of  Gentry  Canyon. 

How  stealthily  we  stole  on !  Here  Copple  said  was  a 
place  for  deer  to  graze.  But  the  grass  plots,  golden  with 
sunlight  and  white  with  frost  and  black-barred  by  shad- 
ows of  pines,  showed  no  game. 

Copple  sat  down  on  a  log,  and  I  took  a  seat  beside  him 
to  the  left.  R.  C.  stood  just  to  my  left.  As  I  laid  my 
rifle  over  my  knees  and  opened  my  lips  to  whisper  I  was 
suddenly  struck  mute.  I  saw  R.  C.  stiffen,  then  crouch 
a  little.  He  leaned  forward — his  eyes  had  the  look  of  a 
falcon.  Then  I  distinctly  heard  the  soft  crack  of  hoofs 
on  stone  and  breaking  of  tiny  twigs.  Quick  as  I  whirled 
my  head  I  still  caught  out  of  the  tail  of  my  eye  the  jerk 
of  R.  C.  as  he  threw  up  his  rifle.  I  looked — I  strained 
my  eyes — I  flashed  them  along  the  rim  of  the  ravine 
where  R.  C.  had  been  gazing.  A  gray  form  seemed  to 
move  into  the  field  of  my  vision.  That  instant  it  leaped, 
and  R.  C.'s  rifle  shocked  me  with  its  bursting  crack.  I 
seemed  stunned,  so  near  was  the  report.  But  I  saw  the 
gray  form  pitch  headlong  and  I  heard  a  solid  thump. 

"Buck,  an'  he's  your  meat!"  called  Copple,  low  and 
sharp.     "Look  for  another  one." 

No  other  deer  appeared.  R.  C.  ran  toward  the  spot 
where  the  gray  form  had  plunged  in  a  heap,  and  Copj^le 
and  I  followed.  It  was  far  enough  to  make  me  pant  for 
breath.  We  found  R.  C.  beside  a  fine  three-point  buck 
that  had  been  shot  square  in  the  back  of  the  head  be- 
tween and  below  the  I'oots  of  its  antlers. 


TONTO  BASIN  285 

"Never  knew  what  struck  him!"  exclaimed  Copple, 
and  he  laid  hold  of  the  deer  and  hauled  it  out  of  the  edge 
of  the  thicket.  "Fine  an' fat.  Venison  for  camp,  boys. 
One  of  you  go  after  the  horses  an'  the  other  help  me  hang 
him  up." 

VI 

I  had  been  riding  eastward  of  Beaver  Dam  Canyon 
with  Haught,  and  we  had  parted  up  on  the  ridge,  he  to 
go  down  a  ravine  leading  to  his  camp,  and  I  to  linger  a 
while  longer  up  there  in  the  Indian-summer  woods,  so 
full  of  gold  and  silence  and  fragrance  on  that  October 
afternoon. 

The  trail  gradually  drew  me  onward  and  downward, 
and  at  length  I  came  out  into  a  narrow  open  park  lined 
by  spruce  trees.  Suddenly  Don  Carlos  shot  up  his  ears. 
I  had  not  ridden  him  for  days  and  he  appeared  more  than 
usually  spirited.  He  saw  or  heard  something.  I  held 
him  in,  and  after  a  moment  I  dismounted  and  drew  my 
rifle.  A  crashing  in  brush  somewhere  near  at  hand 
excited  me.  Peering  all  around  I  tried  to  locate  cause 
for  the  sound.  Again  my  ear  caught  a  violent  swishing 
of  brush  accompanied  by  a  snapping  of  twigs.  This 
time  I  cocked  my  rifle.  Don  Carlos  snorted.  After 
another  circling  swift  gaze  it  dawned  upon  me  that  the 
sound  came  from  overhead. 

I  looked  into  this  tree  and  that,  suddenly  to  have  my 
gaze  arrested  by  a  threshing  commotion  in  the  very  top 
of  a  lofty  spruce.  I  saw  a  dark  form  moving  against  a 
background  of  blue  sky.  Instantly  I  thought  it  must 
be  a  lynx  and  was  about  to  raise  my  rifle  when  a  voice  as 
from  the  very  clouds  utterly  astounded  me.  I  gasped 
in  my  astonishment.  Was  I  dreaming?  But  violent 
threshings  and  whacks  from  the  tree-top  absolutely 
assured  me  that  I  was  neither  dreaming  nor  out  of  my 


286  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

head.  "I  get  you — whee!"  shouted  the  voice.  There 
was  a  man  up  in  the  swaying  top  of  that  spruce  and  he 
was  no  other  than  Takahashi.  For  a  moment  I  could 
not  find  my  voice.     Then  I  shouted : 

"Hey  up  there,  George!  What  in  the  world  are  you 
doing?     I  came  near  shooting  you." 

"Aw  hullo! — I  come  down  now,"  replied  Takahashi. 

I  had  seen  both  lynx  and  lion  climb  down  out  of  a  tree, 
but  nothing  except  a  squirrel  could  ever  have  beaten 
Takahashi.  The  spruce  was  fully  one  hundred  and  fifty 
feet  high;  and  unless  I  made  a  great  mistake  the  Jap 
descended  in  two  minutes.     He  grinned  from  ear  to  ear. 

"I  no  see  you — no  hear,"  he  said.  "You  take  me  for 
big  cat?" 

"Yes,  George,  and  I  might  have  shot  you.  What  were 
you  doing  up  there?" 

Takahashi  brushed  the  needles  and  bark  from  his 
clothes.  "  I  go  out  with  little  gun  you  give  me.  I  hunt, 
no  see  squirrel.  Go  out  no  gun — see  squirrel.  I.  chase 
him  up  tree — I  climb  high — awful  high.  No  good. 
Squirrel  he  too  quick.  He  run  right  over  me — get 
away." 

Takahashi  laughed  with  me.  I  believed  he  was  laugh- 
ing at  what  he  considered  the  surprising  agility  of  the 
squirrel,  while  I  was  laughing  at  him.  Here  was  another 
manifestation  of  the  Jap's  simplicity  and  capacity.  If 
all  Japanese  were  like  Takahashi  they  were  a  wonderful 
people.  Men  are  men  because  they  do  things.  The 
Persians  were  trained  to  sweat  freely  at  least  once  every 
day  of  their  lives.  It  seemed  to  me  that  if  a  man  did  not 
sweat  every  day,  which  was  to  say — labor  hard — he  very 
surely  was  degenerating  physically.  I  could  learn  a 
great  deal  from  George  Takahashi.  Right  there  I  told 
him  that  my  father  had  been  a  famous  squirrel  hunter  in 
his  day.     He  had  such  remarkable  eyesight  that  he  could 


TONTO  BASIN  287 

espy  the  ear  of  a  squirrel  projecting  above  the  highest 
limb  of  a  tall  white  oak.  And  he  was  such  a  splendid  shot 
that  he  had  often  "barked"  squirrels,  as  was  a  noted 
practice  of  the  old  pioneer.  I  had  to  explain  to  Taka- 
hashi  that  this  practice  consisted  of  shooting  a  bullet  to 
hit  the  bark  right  under  the  squirrel,  and  the  concussion 
would  so  stun  it  that  it  would  fall  as  if  dead. 

"Aw  my  goodnish — your  daddy  more  better  shot  than 
you!"  ejaculated  Takahashi. 

"Yes  indeed  he  was,"  I  replied,  reflectively,  as  in  a 
flash  the  long-past  boyhood  days  recurred  in  memory. 
Hunting  days — playing  days  of  boyhood  were  the  best  of 
life.  It  seemed  to  me  that  one  of  the  few  reasons  I  still 
had  for  clinging  to  hunting  was  this  keen,  thrilling  hark 
back  to  early  days.  Books  first — then  guns — then  fish- 
ing poles — so  ran  the  list  of  material  possessions  dear  to 
my  heart  as  a  lad. 

That  night  was  moonlight,  cold,  starry,  with  a  silver 
sheen  on  the  spectral  spruces.  During  the  night  there 
came  a  change;  it  rained — first  a  drizzle,  then  a  heavy 
downpour,  and  at  five-thirty  a  roar  of  hail  on  the  tent. 
This  music  did  not  last  long.  At  seven  o'clock  the 
thermometer  registered  thirty-four  degrees,  but  there 
was  no  frost.  The  morning  was  somewhat  cloudy  or 
foggy,  with  promise  of  clearing. 

We  took  the  hounds  over  to  See  Canyon,  and  while 
Edd  and  Nielsen  went  down  with  them,  the  rest  of  us 
waited  above  for  developments.  Scarcely  had  they  more 
than  time  enough  to  reach  the  gorge  below  when  the  pack 
burst  into  full  chorus.  Haught  led  the  way  then  around 
the  rough  rim  for  better  vantage  points.  I  was  mounted 
on  one  of  the  horses  Lee  had  gotten  for  me — a  fine,  spirited 
animal  named  Stockings.  Probably  he  had  been  a 
cavalry  horse.  He  was  a  bay  with  white  feet,  well  built 
and  powerful,  though  not  over  medium  size.     One  splen- 


i88  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

did  feature  about  him  was  that  a  saddle  appeared  to  fit 
him  so  snugly  it  never  slipped.  And  another  feature, 
infinitely  the  most  attractive  to  me,  was  his  easy  gait. 
His  trot  and  lope  were  so  comfortable  and  swinging,  like 
the  motion  of  a  rocking-chair,  that  I  could  ride  him  all 
day  with  pleasure.  But  when  it  came  to  chasing  after 
hounds  and  bears  along  the  rim  Stockings  gave  me 
trouble.  Too  eager,  too  spirited,  he  would  not  give  me 
time  to  choose  the  direction.  He  jumped  ditches  and 
gullies,  plunged  into  bad  jumbles  or  rock,  tried  to  hurdle 
logs  too  high  for  him,  carried  me  under  low  branches  and 
through  dense  thickets,  and  in  general  showed  he  was 
exceedingly  willing  to  chase  after  the  pack,  but  ignorant 
of  rough  forest  travel.  Owing  to  this  I  fell  behind,  and 
got  out  of  hearing  of  both  hounds  and  men,  and  eventu- 
ally found  myself  lost  somewhere  on  the  west  side  of 
See  Canyon.  To  get  out  I  had  to  turn  my  back  to  the 
sun,  travel  west  till  I  came  to  the  rim  above  Horton 
Thicket,  and  from  there  return  to  camp,  arriving  rather 
late  in  the  afternoon. 

All  the  men  had  returned,  and  all  the  hounds  except 
Buck,  I  was  rather  surprised  and  disturbed  to  find  the 
Haughts  in  a  high  state  of  dudgeon.  Edd  looked  pale 
and  angry.  Upon  questioning  Nielsen  I  learned  that  the 
hounds  had  at  once  struck  a  fresh  bear  track  in  See 
Canyon.  Nielsen  and  Edd  had  not  followed  far  before 
they  heard  a  hound  yelping  in  pain.  They  found  Buck 
caught  in  a  bear  trap.  The  rest  of  the  hounds  came  upon 
a  little  bear  cub,  caught  in  another  trap,  and  killed  it. 
Nielsen  said  it  had  evidently  been  a  prisoner  for  some 
days,  being  very  poor  and  emaciated.  Fresh  tracks  of 
the  mother  bear  were  proof  that  she  had  been  around 
trying  to  save  it  or  minister  to  it.  There  were  trappers 
in  See  Canyon;  and  between  bear  hunters  and  trappers 
manifestly  there  was  no  love  lost.     Edd  said  they  had  as 


TONTO  BASIN  289 

much  right  "to  trap  as  we  had  to  hunt,  but  that  was  not 
the  question.  There  had  been  opportunity  to  tell  the 
Haughts  about  the  big  number  four  bear  traps  set  in  See 
Canyon.  But  they  did  not  tell  it.  Edd  had  brought 
the  dead  cub  back  to  our  camp.  It  was  a  pretty  little 
bear  cub,  about  six  months  old,  with  a  soft  silky  brown 
coat.  No  one  had  to  look  at  it  twice  to  see  how  it  had 
suffered. 

This  matter  of  trapping  wild  animals  is  singularly 
hateful  to  me.  Bad  enough  is  it  to  stalk  deer  to  shoot 
them  for  their  meat,  but  at  least  this  is  a  game  where  the 
deer  have  all  the  advantage.  Bad  indeed  it  may  be  to 
chase  bear  with  hounds,  but  that  is  a  hard,  dangerous 
method  of  hunting  which  gives  it  some  semblance  of 
fairness.  Most  of  my  bear  hunts  proved  to  me  that  I 
ran  more  risks  than  the  bears.  To  set  traps,  however, 
to  hide  big  iron-springed,  spike-toothed  traps  to  catch 
and  clutch  wild  animals  alive,  and  hold  them  till  they 
died  or  starved  or  gnawed  off  their  feet,  or  until  the  trap- 
per chose  to  come  with  his  gun  or  club  to  end  the  miser- 
able business — what  indeed  shall  I  call  that?  Cruel — 
base — cowardly  I 

It  cannot  be  defended  on  moral  grounds.  But  vast 
moneyed  interests  are  at  stake.  One  of  the  greatest  of 
American  fortunes  was  built  upon  the  brutal,  merciless 
trapping  of  wild  animals  for  their  furs.  And  in  this  fall 
of  1919  the  prices  of  fox,  marten,  beaver,  raccoon,  skunk, 
lynx,  muskrat,  mink,  otter,  were  higher  by  double  than 
they  had  ever  been.  Trappers  were  going  to  reap  a  rich 
harvest.  Well,  everybody  must  make  a  living;  but  is 
this  trapping  business  honest,  is  it  manly?  To  my 
knowledge  trappers  are  hardened.  Market  fishermen 
are  hardened,  too,  but  the  public  eat  fish.  They  do  not 
eat  furs.  Now  in  cold  climates  and  seasons  furs  are 
valuable  to  protect  people  who  must  battle  with  winter 


290  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

'  winds  and  sleet  and  ice;  and  against  their  use  by  such 
.  I  daresay  there  is  no  justification  for  censure.  But  the 
vast  number  of  furs  go  to  deck  the  persons  of  vain  women. 
I  appreciate  the  beautiful  contrast  of  fair  skin  against  a 
background  of  sable  fur,  or  silver  fox,  or  rich,  black, 
velvety  seal.  But  beautiful  women  would  be  just  as 
beautiful,  just  as  warmly  clothed  in  wool  instead  of  fur. 
And  infinitely  better  women!  Not  long  ago  I  met  a 
young  woman  in  one  of  New  York's  fashionable  hotels, 
and  I  remarked  about  the  exquisite  evening  coat  of  fur 
she  wore.  She  said  she  loved  furs.  She  certainly  was 
handsome,  and  she  appeared  to  be  refined,  cultured,  a 
girl  of  high  class.  And  I  said  it  was  a  pity  women  did 
not  know  or  care  where  furs  came  from.  She  seemed 
surprised.  Then  I  told  her  about  the  iron-jawed,  spike- 
toothed  traps  hidden  by  the  springs  or  on  the  runways  of 
game — about  the  fox  or  beaver  or  marten  seeking  its 
food,  training  its  young  to  fare  for  themselves — about  the 
sudden  terrible  clutch  of  the  trap,  and  then  the  frantic 
fear,  the  instinctive  fury,  the  violent  struggle — about  the 
foot  gnawed  off  by  the  beast  that  was  too  fierce  to  die  a 
captive— about  the  hours  of  agony,  the  horrible  thirst — • 
the  horrible  days  till  death.  And  I  concluded:  "All 
because  women  are  luxurious  and  vain ! "  She  shuddered 
underneath  the  beautiful  coat  of  furs,  and  seemed 
insulted. 

Upon  inquiry  I  learned  from  Nielsen  that  Buck  was 
coming  somewhere  back  along  the  trail  hopping  along  on 
three  legs.  I  rode  on  down  to  my  camp,  and  procuring 
a  bottle  of  iodine  I  walked  back  in  the  hope  of  doing  Buck 
a  good  turn.  During  my  absence  he  had  reached  camp, 
and  was  lying  under  an  aspen,  apart  from  the  other 
hounds.  Buck  looked  meaner  and  uglier  and  more  dis- 
trustful than  ever.  Evidently  this  injury  to  his  leg  was 
a  trick  played  upon  him  by  his  arch  enemy  man.     I  stood 


TONTO  BASIN  .291 

beside  him,  as  he  licked  the  swollen,  bloody  leg,  and  talked ' 
to  him,  as  kindly  as  I  knew  how.  And  finally  I  sat  down ' 
beside  him.  The  trap-teeth  had  caught  his  right  front 
leg  just  above  the  first  joint,  and  from  the  position  of 
the  teeth  marks  and  the  way  he  moved  his  leg  I  had 
hopes  that  the  bone  was  not  broken.  Apparently  the 
big  teeth  had  gone  through  on  each  side  of  the  bone. 
When  I  tried  gently  to  touch  the  swollen  leg  Buck 
growled  ominously.  He  would  have  bitten  me.  I 
patted  his  head  with  one  hand,  and  watching  my  chance, 
at  length  with  the  other  I  poured  iodine  over  the  open 
cuts.  Then  I  kept  patting  him  and  holding  his  head 
until  the  iodine  had  become  absorbed.  Perhaps  it  was 
only  my  fancy,  but  it  seemed  that  the  ugly  gleam  in  his 
distrustful  eyes  had  become  sheepish,  as  if  he  was 
ashamed  of  something  he  did  not  understand.  That 
look  more  than  ever  determined  me  to  try  to  find  some 
way  to  his  affections. 

A  camp-fire  council  that  night  resulted  in  plans  to  take 
a  pack  outfit,  and  ride  west  along  the  rim  to  a  place 
Haught  called  Dude  Creek.  "Reckon  we'll  shore  smoke 
up  some  bars  along  Dude,"  said  Haught.  "Never  was 
in  there  but  I  jumped  bars.  Good  deer  an'  turkey 
country,  too." 

Next  day  we  rested  the  hounds,  and  got  things  into 
packing  shape  with  the  intention  of  starting  early  the 
following  morning.  But  it  rained  on  and  off;  and  the 
day  after  that  we  could  not  find  Haught's  burros,  and  not 
until  the  fourth  morning  could  we  start.  It  turned  out 
that  Buck  did  not  have  a  broken  leg  and  had  recovered 
surprisingly  from  the  injury  he  had  received.  Aloof  as 
he  held  himself  it  appeared  certain  he  did  not  want  to  be 
left  behind. 

We  rode  all  day  along  the  old  Crook  road  where  the 
year  before  we  had  encountered  so  many  obstacles.     I 


292  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

remembered  most  of  the  road,  but  how  strange  it  seemed 
to  me,  and  what  a  proof  of  my  mental  condition  on  that 
memorable  trip,  that  I  did  not  remember  all.  Usually 
forest  or  desert  ground  I  have  traveled  over  I  never 
forget.  This  ride,  in  the  middle  of  October,  when  all  the 
colors  of  autumn  vied  with  the  sunlight  to  make  the 
forest  a  region  of  golden  enchantment,  was  one  of  partic- 
ular delight  to  me.  I  had  begun  to  work  and  wear  out 
the  pain  in  my  back.  Every  night  I  had  suffered  a  little 
less  and  slept  a  little  better,  and  every  morning  I  had  less 
and  less  of  a  struggle  to  get  up  and  straighten  out.  Many 
a  groan  had  I  smothered.  But  now,  when  I  got  warmed 
up  from  riding  or  walking  or  sawing  wood,  the  pain  left 
me  altogether  and  I  forgot  it.  I  had  given  myself  heroic 
treatment,  but  my  reward  was  in  sight.  My  theory  that 
the  outdoor  life  would  cure  almost  any  ill  of  body  or  mind 
seemed  to  have  earned  another  proof  added  to  the  long 
list. 

At  sunset  we  had  covered  about  sixteen  miles  of  rough 
road,  and  had  arrived  at  a  point  where  we  were  to  turn 
away  from  the  rim,  down  into  a  canyon  named  Barber 
Shop  Canyon,  where  we  were  to  camp. 

Before  turning  aside  I  rode  out  to  the  rim  for  a  look 
down  at  the  section  of  country  we  were  to  hunt.  What  a 
pleasure  to  recognize  the  point  from  which  Romer-boy 
had  seen  his  first  wild  bear !  It  was  a  wonderful  section 
of  rim-rock  country.  I  appeared  to  be  at  the  extreme 
point  of  a  vast  ten-league  promontory,  rising  high  over 
the  basin,  where  the  rim  was  cut  into  canyons  as  thick 
as  teeth  of  a  saw.  They  were  notched  and  v-shaped. 
Craggy  russet-lichened  cliffs,  yellow  and  gold-stained 
rocks,  old  crumbling  ruins  of  pinnacles  crowned  by  pine 
thickets,  ravines  and  gullies  and  canyons,  choked  with 
trees  and  brush  all  green-gold,  purple-red,  scarlet-fire — 
these  indeed  were  the  heights  and  depths,  the  wild,  lonely 


Z.    G.  S   CINNAMON    BEAR 


R.    C.'S    BIG   BROWN    BEAR 


ANOTHER    HEAR 


TONTO  BASIN  293 

ruggedness,  the  color  and  beauty  of  Arizona  land.  There 
were  long,  steep  slopes  of  oak  thickets,  where  the  bears 
lived,  long  gray  slides  of  weathered  rocks,  long  slanting 
ridges  of  pine,  descending  for  miles  out  and  down  into  the 
green  basin,  yet  always  seeming  to  stand  high  above 
that  rolling  wilderness.  The  sun  stood  crossed  by  thin 
clouds — a  golden  blaze  in  a  golden  sky — sinking  to  meet 
a  ragged  horizon  line  of  purple. 

Here  again  was  I  confronted  with  the  majesty  and 
beauty  of  the  earth,  and  with  another  and  more  striking 
effect  of  this  vast  tilted  rim  of  mesa.  I  could  see  many 
miles  to  west  and  east.  This  rim  was  a  huge  wall  of 
splintered  rock,  a  colossal  cliff,  towering  so  high  above 
the  black  basin  below  that  ravines  and  canyons  resembled 
ripples  or  dimples,  darker  lines  of  shade.  And  on  the 
other  side  from  its  very  edge,  where  the  pine  fringe  began, 
it  sloped  gradually  to  the  north,  with  heads  of  canyons 
opening  almost  at  the  crest.  I  saw  one  ravine  begin  its 
start  not  fifty  feet  from  the  rim. 

Barber  Shop  Canyon  had  five  heads,  all  running  down 
like  the  fingers  of  a  hand,  to  form  the  main  canyon,  which 
was  deep,  narrow,  forested  by  giant  pines.  A  round, 
level  dell,  watered  by  a  murmuring  brook,  deep  down 
among  the  many  slopes,  was  our  camp  ground,  and  never 
had  I  seen  one  more  desirable.  The  wind  soughed  in  the 
lofty  pine  tops,  but  not  a  breeze  reached  down  to  this 
sheltered  nook.  With  sunset  gold  on  the  high  slopes  our 
camp  was  shrouded  in  twilight  shadows.  R.  C.  and  I 
stretched  a  canvas  fly  over  a  rope  from  tree  to  tree, 
staked  down  the  ends,  and  left  the  sides  open.  Under 
this  we  unrolled  our  beds. 

Night  fell  quickly  down  in  that  sequestered  pit,  and 

indeed  it  was  black  night.    A  blazing  camp-fire  enhanced 

the  circling  gloom,  and  invested  the  great  brown  pines 

with  some  weird  aspect.     The  boys  put  up  an  old  tent 

20 


294  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

for  the  hounds.  Poor  Buck  was  driven  out  of  this 
shelter  by  his  canine  rivals.  I  took  pity  upon  him,  and 
tied  him  at  the  foot  of  my  bed.  When  R.  C.  and  I 
crawled  into  our  blankets  we  discovered  Buck  snugly 
settled  between  our  beds,  and  wonderful  to  hear,  he 
whined.  "Well,  Buck,  old  dog,  you  keep  the  skunks 
away,"  said  R.  C.  And  Buck  emitted  some  kind  of 
a  queer  sound,  apparently  meant  to  assure  us  that 
he  would  keep  even  a  lion  away.  From  my  bed  I 
could  see  the  tips  of  the  black  pines  close  to  the  white 
stars.  Before  I  dropped  to  sleep  the  night  grew  silent, 
except  for  the  faint  moan  of  wind  and  low  murmur  of 
brook. 

We  crawled  out  early,  keen  to  run  from  the  cold  wash 
in  the  brook  to  the  hot  camp-fire.  George  and  Edd  had 
gone  down  the  canyon  after  the  horses,  which  had  been 
hobbled  and  turned  loose.  Lee  had  remained  with  his 
father  at  Beaver  Dam  camp.  For  breakfast  Takahashi 
had  venison,  biscuits,  griddle  cakes  with  maple  syrup, 
and  hot  cocoa.  I  certainly  did  not  begin  on  an  empty 
stomach  what  augured  to  be  a  hard  day.  Buck  hung 
around  me  this  morning,  and  I  subdued  my  generous 
impulses  long  enough  to  be  convinced  that  he  had  under- 
gone a  subtle  change.  Then  I  fed  him.  Old  Dan  and 
Old  Tom  were  witnesses  of  this  procedure,  which  they 
regarded  with  extreme  disfavor.  And  the  pups  tried  to 
pick  a  fight  with  Buck. 

By  eight  o'clock  we  were  riding  up  the  colored  slopes, 
through  the  still  forest,  with  the  sweet,  fragrant,  frosty 
air  nipping  at  our  noses.  A  mile  from  camp  we  reached 
a  notch  in  the  rim  that  led  down  to  Dude  Creek,  and  here 
Edd  and  Nielsen  descended  with  the  hounds.  The  rest 
of  us  rode  out  to  a  point  there  to  await  developments. 
The  sun  had  already  flooded  the  basin  with  golden  light ; 
the  east  slopes  of  canyon  and  rim  were  dark  in  shade.     I 


TONTO  BASIN  295 

sat  on  a  mat  of  pine  needles  near  the  rim,  and  looked,  and 
cared  not  for  passage  of  time. 

But  I  was  not  permitted  to  be  left  to  sensorial  dreams. 
Right  under  us  the  hounds  opened  up,  filling  the  canyon 
full  of  bellowing  echoes.  They  worked  down.  Slopes 
below  us  narrowed  to  promontories  and  along  these  we 
kept  our  gaze.  Suddenly  Haught  gave  a  jump,  and  rose, 
thumping  to  his  horse.  "Saw  a  bar,"  he  yelled.  >."Just 
got  a  glimpse  of  him  crossin'  an  open  ridge.  Come  on." 
We  mounted  and  chased  Haught  over  the  roughest  kind 
of  rocky  ground,  to  overtake  him  at  the  next  point  on  the 
rim.  "Ride  along,  you  fellars,"  he  said,  "an'  each  pick 
out  a  stand.     Keep  ahead  of  the  dogs  an'  look  sharp." 

Then  it  was  in  short  order  that  I  found  myself  alone, 
Copple,  R.  C.  and  George  Haught  having  got  ahead  of 
me.  I  kept  to  the  rim.  The  hounds  could  be  heard 
plainly  and  also  the  encouraging  yells  of  Nielsen  and 
Edd.  Apparently  the  chase  was  working  along  under 
me,  in  the  direction  I  was  going.  The  baying  of  the 
pack,  the  scent  of  pine,  the  ring  of  iron-shod  hoofs  on 
stone,  the  sense  of  wild,  broken,  vast  country,  the  golden 
void  beneath  and  the  purple-ranged  horizon — all  these 
brought  vividly  and  thrillingly  to  mind  my  hunting  days 
with  Buffalo  Jones  along  the  north  rim  of  the  Grand 
Canyon.  I  felt  a  pang,  both  for  the  past,  and  for  my 
friend  and  teacher,  this  last  of  the  old  plainsmen  who  had 
died  recently.  In  his  last  letter  to  me,  written  with  a 
death-stricken  hand,  he  had  talked  of  another  hunt,  of 
more  adventure,  of  his  cherished  hope  to  possess  an  island 
in  the  north  Pacific,  there  to  propagate  wild  animals — 
he  had  dreamed  again  the  dream  that  could  never  come 
true.  I  was  riding  with  my  face  to  the  keen,  sweet  winds 
of  the  wild,  and  he  was  gone.  No  joy  in  life  is  ever 
perfect.  I  wondered  if  any  grief  was  ever  wholly 
hopeless. 


296  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

I  came  at  length  to  a  section  of  rim  where  huge  tim- 
bered steps  reached  out  and  down.  Dismounting  I  tied 
Stockings,  and  descended  to  the  craggy  points  below, 
where  I  clambered  here  and  there,  looking,  listening.  No 
longer  could  I  locate  the  hounds;  now  the  baying  sounded 
clear  and  sharp,  close  at  hand,  and  then  hollow  and  faint, 
and  far  away.  I  crawled  under  gnarled  cedars,  over 
jumbles  of  rock,  around  leaning  crags,  until  I  got  out  to 
a  point  where  I  had  such  command  of  slopes  and  capes, 
where  the  scene  was  so  grand  that  I  was  both  thrilled  and 
awed.  Somewhere  below  me  to  my  left  were  the  hounds 
still  baying.  The  lower  reaches  of  the  rim  consisted  of 
ridges  and  gorges,  benches  and  ravines,  canyons  and 
promontories — a  country  so  wild  and  broken  that  it 
seemed  impossible  for  hounds  to  travel  it,  let  alone  men. 
Above  me,  to  my  right,  stuck  out  a  yellow  point  of  rim, 
and  beyond  that  I  knew  there  jutted  out  another  point, 
and  more  and  more  points  on  toward  the  west.  George 
was  yelling  from  one  of  them,  and  I  thought  I  heard  a 
faint  reply  from  R.  C.  or  Copple.  I  believed  for  the 
present  they  were  too  far  westward  along  the  rim,  and 
so  I  devoted  my  attention  to  the  slopes  under  me  toward 
my  left.  But  once  my  gaze  wandered  around,  and 
suddenly  I  espied  a  shiny  black  object  moving  along  a 
bare  slope,  far  below.  A  bear!  So  thrilled  and  excited 
was  I  that  I  did  not  wonder  why  this  bear  walked  along 
so  leisurely  and  calmly.  Assuredly  he  had  not  even 
heard  the  hounds.  I  began  to  shoot,  and  in  five  rapid 
shots  I  spattered  dust  all  over  him.  Not  until  I  had  two 
more  shots,  one  of  which  struck  close,  did  he  begin  to  run. 
Then  he  got  out  of  my  sight.  I  yelled  and  yelled  to  those 
ahead  of  me  along  the  rim.  Somebody  answered,  and 
next  somebody  began  to  shoot.  How  I  climbed  and 
crawled  and  scuffled  to  get  back  to  my  horse !  Stockings 
answered  to  the  spirit  of  the  occasion.     Like  a  deer  he 


TONTO  BASIN  297 

ran  around  the  rough  rim,  and  I  had  to  perform  with  the 
agility  of  a  contortionist  to  avoid  dead  snags  of  trees  and 
green  branches.  When  I  got  to  the  point  from  which  I 
had  calculated  George  had  done  his  shooting  I  found  no 
one.  My  yells  brought  no  answers.  But  I  heard  a 
horse  cracking  the  rocks  behind  me.  Then  up  from  far 
below  rang  the  sharp  spangs  of  rifles  in  quick  action. 
Nielsen  and  Edd  were  shooting.  I  counted  seven  shots. 
How  the  echoes  rang  from  wall  to  wall,  to  die  hollow  and 
faint  in  the  deep  canyons ! 

I  galloped  ahead  to  the  next  point,  finding  only  the 
tracks  of  R.  C.  's  boots.  Everywhere  I  peered  for  the 
bear  I  had  sighted,  and  at  intervals  I  yelled.  For  all  the 
answer  I  got  I  might  as  well  have  been  alone  on  the 
windy  rim  of  the  world.  My  voice  seemed  lost  in  im- 
mensity. Then  I  rode  westward,  then  back  eastward, 
and  to  and  fro  until  both  Stockings  and  I  were  weary. 
At  last  I  gave  up,  and  took  a  good,  long  rest  under  a  pine 
on  the  rim.  Not  a  shot,  not  a  yell,  not  a  sound  but  wind 
and  the  squall  of  a  jay  disrupted  the  peace  of  that  hour. 
I  profited  by  this  lull  in  the  excitement  by  more  means 
than  one,  particularly  in  sight  of  a  flock  of  wild  pigeons. 
They  alighted  in  the  tops  of  pines  below  me,  so  that  I 
could  study  them  through  my  field  glass.  They  were 
considerably  larger  than  doves,  dull  purple  color  on  the 
back,  light  on  the  breast,  with  ringed  or  barred  neck. 
Haught  had  assured  me  that  birds  of  this  description  were 
indeed  the  famous  wild  pigeons,  now  almost  extinct  in 
the  United  States.  I  remembered  my  father  telling  me 
he  had  seen  flocks  that  darkened  the  skies.  These 
pigeons  appeared  to  have  swift  flight. 

Another  feature  of  this  rest  along  the  rim  was  a  sight 
just  as  beautiful  as  that  of  the  pigeons,  though  not  so 
rare;  and  it  was  the  flying  of  clouds  of  colored  autumn 
leaves  on  the  wind. 


298  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

The  westering  of  the  sun  advised  me  that  the  hours 
had  fled,  and  it  was  high  time  for  me  to  bestir  myself 
toward  camp.  On  my  way  back  I  found  Haught,  his 
son  George,  Copple  and  R.  C.  waiting  for  Edd  and  Niel- 
sen to  come  up  over  the  rim,  and  for  me  to  return.  They 
asked  for  my  story.  Then  I  learned  theirs.  Haught  had 
kept  even  with  the  hounds,  but  had  seen  only  the  brown 
bear  that  had  crossed  the  ridge  early  in  the  day.  Copple 
had  worked  far  westward,  to  no  avail.  R.  C.  had  been 
close  to  George  and  me,  had  heard  our  bullets  pat,  yet 
had  been  unable  to  locate  any  bear.  To  my  surprise  it 
turned  out  that  George  had  shot  at  a  brown  bear  when 
I  had  supposed  it  was  my  black  one.  Whereupon 
Haught  said:  "Reckon  Edd  an'  Nielsen  smoked  up  some 
other  bear." 

One  by  one  the  hounds  climbed  over  the  rim  and 
wearily  lay  down  beside  us.  Down  the  long,  grassy, 
cedared  aisle  I  saw  Edd  and  Nielsen  plodding  up.  At 
length  they  reached  us  wet  and  dusty  and  thirsty.  When 
Edd  got  his  breath  he  said :  ' '  Right  off  we  struck  a  hot 
trail.  Bear  with  eleven-inch  track.  He'd  come  down 
to  drink  last  night.  Hounds  worked  up  thet  yeller  oak 
thicket,  an'  somewhere  Sue  an'  Rock  jumped  him  out  of 
his  bed.  He  run  down,  an"  he  made  some  racket.  Took 
to  the  low  slopes  an'  hit  up  lively  all  the  way  down  Dude, 
then  crossed,  climbed  around  imder  thet  bare  point  of 
rock.  Here  some  of  the  hounds  caught  up  with  him. 
We  heard  a  pup  yelp,  an'  after  a  while  Kaiser  Bill  come 
sneakin'  back.  It  was  awful  thick  down  in  the  canyon 
so  we  climbed  the  east  side  high  enough  to  see.  An'  we 
were  workin'  down  when  the  pack  bayed  the  bear  round 
thet  bare  point.  It  was  up  an'  across  from  us.  Nielsen 
an'  I  climbed  on  a  rock.  There  was  an  open  rock-slide 
where  we  thought  the  bear  would  show.  It  was  five 
hundred  yards.     We  ought  to  have  gone  across  an'  got 


TONTO  BASIN  299 

a  stand  higher  up.  Well,  pretty  soon  we  saw  him  come 
paddlin'  out  of  the  brush — a  big  grizzly,  almost*  black, 
with  a  frosty  back.  He  was  a  silvertip  all  right.  Niels 
an'  I  began  to  shoot.  An'  thet  bear  began  to  hump 
himself.  He  was  mad,  too.  His  fur  stood  up  like  a 
ruffle  on  his  neck.  Niels  got  four  shots  an'  I  got  three. 
Reckon  one  of  us  stung  him  a  little.  Lordy,  how  he  run ! 
An'  his  last  jump  off  the  slide  was  a  header  into  the 
brush.  He  crossed  the  canyon,  an'  climbed  thet  high 
east  slope  of  Dude,  goin'  over  the  pass  where  father*  killed 
the  big  cinnamon  three  years  ago.  The  hounds  stuck 
to  his  trail.  It  took  us  an  hour  or  more  to  climb  up  to 
thet  pass.  Broad  bear  trail  goes  over.  We  heard  the 
hounds  'way  down  in  the  canyon  on  the  other  side. 
Niels  an'  I  worked  along  the  ridge,  down  an'  around,  an' 
back  to  Dude  Creek.  I  kept  callin'  the  hounds  till  they 
all  came  back.  They  couldn't  catch  him.  He  sure  was 
a  jack-rabbit  for  runnin'.  Reckon  thet's  all.  .  .  .  Now 
who  was  smokin'  shells  up  on  the  rim?" 

When  all  was  told  and  talked  over  Haught  said :  ' '  Wal, 
you  can  just  bet  we  put  up  two  brown  bears  an'  one  black 
bear,  an'  thet  old  Jasper  of  a  silvertip." 

How  hungry  and  thirsty  and  tired  I  was  when  we  got 
back  to  camp!  The  day  had  been  singularly  rich  in 
exciting  thrills  and  sensorial  perceptions.  I  called  to  the 
Jap:  "I'm  starv-ved  to  death!"  And  Takahashi,  who 
had  many  times  heard  my  little  boy  Loren  yell  that, 
grinned  all  over  his  dusky  face.  "Aw,  lots  good  things 
pretty  soon!" 

After  supper  we  lounged  around  a  cheerful,  craclding 
camp-fire.  The  blaze  roared  in  the  breeze,  the  red  em- 
bers glowed  white  and  opal,  the  smoke  swooped  down  and 
curled  away  into  the  night  shadows.  Old  Dan,  as  usual, 
tried  to  sit  in  the  fire,  and  had  to  be  rescued.  Buck  came 
to  me  where  I  sat  with  my  back  to  a  pine,  my  feet  to  the 


300  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

warmth.  He  was  lame  to-night,  having  run  all  day  on 
that  injured  leg.  The  other  dogs  lay  scattered  around 
in  range  of  the  heat.  Natural  indeed  was  it  then,  in  such 
an  environment,  after  talking  over  the  auspicious  start 
of  our  hunt  at  Dude  Creek,  that  we  should  drift  to  the 
telling  of  stories. 

Sensing  this  drift  I  opened  the  hour  of  reminiscence 
and  told  some  of  my  experiences  in  the  jungle  of  southern 
Mexico.  Copple  immediately  topped  my  stories  by  more 
wonderful  and  hair-raising  ones  about  his  own  adventures 
in  northern  Mexico.  These  stirred  Nielsen  to  talk  about 
the  Seri  Indians,  and  their  cannibalistic  traits;  and  from 
these  he  drifted  to  the  Yuma  Indians.  Speaking  of  their 
remarkable  stature  and  strength  he  finally  got  to  the 
subject  of  giants  of  brawn  and  bone  in  Norway. 

One  young  Norwegian  was  eight  feet  tall  and  broad 
in  proportion.  His  employer  was  a  captain  of  a  fishing 
boat.  One  time,  on  the  way  to  their  home  port,  a  quarrel 
arose  about  money  due  the  young  giant,  and  in  his  anger 
hcheaved  the  anchor  overboard.  That  of  course  halted 
the  boat,  and  it  stayed  halted,  because  the  captain  and 
crew  could  not  heave  the  heavy  anchor  without  the  help 
of  their  brawny  comrade.  Finally  the  money  matter 
was  adjusted,  and  the  young  giant  heaved  the  anchor 
without  assistance.  Nielsen  went  on  to  tell  that  this 
fisherman  of  such  mighty  frame  had  a  beautiful  young 
wife  whom  he  adored.  She  was  not  by  any  means  a 
small  or  frail  girl — rather  the  contrary — but  she  appeared 
diminutive  beside  her  giant  husband.  One  day  he  re- 
turned from  a  long  absence  on  the  sea.  When  his  wife, 
in  her  joy,  ran  into  his  arms,  he  gave  her  such  a  tremen- 
dous hug  that  he  crushed  her  chest,  and  she  died.  In  his 
grief  the  young  husband  went  insane  and  did  not  survive 
her  long. 

Next  Nielsen  told  a  story  about  Norwegians  sailing  to 


XONTP  BASIN  301 

the  Arctic  on  a  scientific  expedition.  Just  before  the  long 
polar  night  of  darkness  set  in  there  arose  a  necessity  for 
the  ship  and  crew  to  return  to  Norway,  Two  men  must 
be  left  in  the  Arctic  to  care  for  the  supplies  until  the  ship 
came  back.  The  captain  called  for  volunteers.  There 
were  two  young  men  in  the  crew,  and  from  childhood 
they  had  been  playmates,  schoolmates,  closer  than 
brothers,  and  inseparable  even  in  manhood.  One  of 
these  young  men  said  to  his  friend:  "I'll  stay  if  you  will." 
And  the  other  quickly  agreed.  After  the  ship  sailed, 
and  the  land  of  the  midnight  sun  had  become  icy  and 
black,  one  of  these  comrades  fell  ill,  and  soon  died.  The 
living  one  placed  the  body  in  the  room  with  the  ship 
supplies,  where  it  froze  stiff ;  and  during  all  the  long  polar 
night  of  solitude  and  ghastly  gloom  he  lived  next  to  this 
sepulchre  that  contained  his  dead  friend.  When  the  ship 
returned  the  crew  found  the  living  comrade  an  old  man 
with  hair  as  white  as  snow,  and  never  in  his  life  afterward 
was  he  seen  to  smile. 

These  stories  stirred  my  emotions  like  Doyle's  tale 
about  Jones'  Ranch.  How  wonderful,  beautiful,  terrible 
and  tragical  is  human  life!  Again  I  heard  the  still,  sad 
m^usic  of  humanity,  the  eternal  beat  and  moan  of  the 
waves  upon  a  lonely  shingle  shore.  Who  would  not  be 
a  teller  of  tales  ? 

Copple  followed  Nielsen  with  a  story  about  a  prodigious 
feat  of  his  own — a  story  of  incredible  strength  and  en- 
durance, which  at  first  I  took  to  be  a  satire  on  Nielsen's 
remarkable  narrative.  But  Copple  seemed  deadly 
serious,  and  I  began  to  see  that  he  possessed  a  strange 
simplicity  of  exaggeration.  The  boys  thought  Copple 
stretched  the  truth  a  little,  but  I  thought  that  he  believed 
what  he  told. 

H aught  was  a  great  teller  of  tales,  and  his  first  story 
of  the  evening  happened  to  be  about  his  brother  Bill. 


302  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

They  had  a  long  chase  after  a  bear  and  became  separated. 
Bill  was  new  at  the  game,  and  he  was  a  peculiar  fellow 
anyhow.  Much  given  to  talking  to  himself!  Haught 
finally  rode  to  the  edge  of  a  ridge* and  espied  Bill  under  a 
pine  in  which  the  hounds  had  treed  a  bear.  Bill  did  not 
hear  Haught 's  approach,  and  on  the  moment  he  was 
stalking  round  the  pine,  swearing  at  the  bear,  which 
clung  to  a  branch  about  half  way  up.  Then  Haught 
discovered  two  more  full-grown  bears  up  in  the  top  of 
the  pine,  the  presence  of  which  Bill  had  not  the  remotest 
suspicion.  "Ahuh!  you  ole  black  Jasper!"  Bill  was 
yelling.     "I  treed  you  an'  in  a  minnit  I'm  agoin'  to 

assassinate  you.     Chased  me  about  a  hundred  miles ! 

An'  thought  you'd  fool  me,  didn't  you?     Why,  I've  treed 

more  bears  than  you  ever  saw !    You  needn't  [look 

at  me  like  thet,  'cause  I'm  mad  as  a  hornet.  I'm  agoin' 
to  assassinate  you  in  a  minnit  an'  skin  your  black  har  off, 
lam " 

"Bill,"  interrupted  Haught,  "what  are  you  goin'  to  do 
about  the  other  two  bears  up  in  the  top  of  the  tree?" 

Bill  was  amazed  to  hear  p.nd  see  his  brother,  and  greatly 
astounded  and  tremendously  elated  to  discover  the  other 
two  bears.  He  yelled  and  acted  as  one  demented. 
"Three  black  Jaspers!  I've  treed  you  all.  An'  I'm 
agoin'  to  assassinate  you  all!" 

''See  here,  Bill,"  said  Haught,  "before  you  begin  that 
assassinatin'  make  up  your  mind  not  to  cripple  any  of 
them.  You've  got  to  shoot  straight,  so  they'll  be  dead 
when  they  fall.  If  they're  only  crippled,  they'll  kill  the 
hounds." 

Bill  was  insulted  at  any  suggestions  as  to  his  possible 
poor  marksman'ship.  But  this  happened  to  be  his  first 
experience  with  bears  in  trees.  He  began  to  shoot  and 
it  took  nine  shots  for  him  tc  dislodge  the  bears.  Worse 
than  that  they  all  tumbled  out  of  the  tree — apparently 


TONTO  BASIN  303 

unhurt.  The  hounds,  of  course,  attacked  them,  and  there 
arose  a  terrible  uproar.  Haught  had  to  run  down  to  save 
his  dogs.  Bill  was  going  to  shoot  right  into  the  melee, 
but  Haught  knocked  the  rifle  up,  and  forbid  him  to  use 
it.  Then  Bill  ran  into  the  thick  of  the  fray  to  beat  off 
the  hounds.  Haught  became  exceedingly  busy  himself, 
and  finally  disposed  of  two  of  the  bears.  Then  hearing 
angry  bawls  and  terrific  yells  he  turned  to  see  Bill  climb- 
ing a  tree  with  a  big  black  bear  tearing  the  seat  out  of  his 
pants.  Haught  disposed  of  this  bear  also.  Then  he 
said :  ' '  Bill,  I  thought  you  was  goin'  to  assassinate  them. " 
Bill  slid  down  out  of  the  tree,  very  pale  and  disheveled. 
"By  Golly,  I'll  skin  'em  anyhow!" 

Haught  had  another  brother  named  Henry,  who  had 
come  to  Arizona  from  Texas,  and  had  brought  a  half- 
hound  with  him.  Henry  offered  to  wager  this  dog  was  the 
best  bear  chaser  in  the  country.  The  general  impression 
Henry's  hound  gave  was  that  he  would  not  chase  a  rab- 
bit. Finally  Haught  took  his  brother  Henry  and  some 
other  men  on  a  bear  hunt.  There  were  wagers  made  as 
to  the  quality  of  Henry's  half-hound.  When  at  last 
Haught's  pack  struck  a  hot  scent,  and  were  off  with  the 
men  riding  fast  behind,  Henry's  half-breed  loped  along- 
side his  master,  paying  no  attention  to  the  wild  baying 
of  the  pack.  He  would  look  up  at  Henry  as  if  to  say: 
"No  hurry,  boss.  Wait  a  little.  Then  I'll  show  them!" 
He  loped  along,  wagging  his  tail,  evidently  enjoying  this 
race  with  his  master.  After  a  while  the  chase  grew 
hotter.  Then  Henry's  half -hound  ran  ahead  a  little  way, 
and  came  back  to  look  up  wisely,  as  if  to  say :  ' '  Not  time 
yet!"  After  a  while,  when  the  chase  grew  very  hot 
indeed,  Henry's  wonderful  canine  let  out  a  wild  yelp, 
darted  ahead,  overtook  the  pack  and  took  the  lead  in  the 
chase,  literally  chewing  the  heels  of  the  bear  till  he  treed. 
Haught  and  his  friends  lost  all  the  wagers 


304  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

The  most  remarkable  bears  in  this  part  of  Arizona  were 
what  Haught  called  blue  bears,  possibly  some  kind  of  a 
cross  between  brown  and  black.  This  species  was  a  long, 
slim,  blue-furred  bear  with  unusually  large  teeth  and  very 
long  claws.  So  different  from  ordinary  bears  that  it 
appeared  another  species.  The  blue  bear  could  run  like 
a  greyhound,  and  keep  it  up  all  day  and  all  night.  Its 
power  of  endurance  was  incredible.  In  Haught's  twenty 
years  of  hunting  there  he  had  seen  a  number  of  blue  bears 
and  had  killed  two.  Haught  chased  one  all  day  with 
young  and  fast  hounds.  He  went  to  camp,  but  the 
hounds  stuck  to  the  chase.  Next  day  Haught  followed 
the  hounds  and  bear  from  Dude  Creek  over  into  Verde 
Canyon,  back  to  Dude  Creek,  and  then  back  to  Verde 
again.  Here  Haught  gave  out,  and  was  on  his  way  home 
when  he  met  the  blue  bear  padding  along  as  lively  as 
ever. 

I  never  tired  of  listening  to  Haught.  He  had  killed 
over  a  hundred  bears,  many  of  them  vicious  grizzlies,  and 
he  had  often  escaped  by  a  breadth  of  a  hair,  but  the 
killing  stories  were  not  the  most  interesting  to  me. 
Haught  had  lived  a  singularly  elemental  life.  He  never 
knew  what  to  tell  me,  because  I  did  not  know  what  to  ask 
for,  so  I  just  waited  for  stories,  experiences,  woodcraft, 
natural  history  and  the  like,  to  come  when  they  would. 
Once  he  had  owned  an  old  bay  horse  named  Moze. 
Under  any  conditions  of  weather  or  country  Moze  could 
find  his  way  back  to  camp.  Haught  would  let  go  the 
bridle,  and  Moze  would  stick  up  his  ears,  look  about 
him,  and  circle  home.  No  matter  if  camp  had  been  just 
where  Haught  had  last  thrown  a  packsaddle ! 

When  Haught  first  came  to  Arizona  and  began  his 
hunting  up  over  the  rim  he  used  to  get  down  in  the  cedar 
country,  close  to  the  desert.  Here  he  heard  of  a  pure 
black  antelope  that  was  the  leader  of  a  herd  of  ordinary 


TONTO  BASIN  305 

color,  which  was  a  grayish  white.  The  day  came  when 
Haught  saw  this  black  antelope.  It  was  a  very  large, 
beautiful  stag,  the  most  noble  and  wild  and  sagacious 
animal  Haught  had  ever  seen.  For  years  he  tried  to 
stalk  it  and  kill  it,  and  so  did  other  hunters.  But  no 
hunter  ever  got  even  a  shot  at  it.  Finally  this  black 
antelope  disappeared  and  was  never  heard  of  again. 

By  this  time  Copple  had  been  permitted  a  long  breath- 
ing spell,  and  now  began  a  tale  calculated  to  outdo  the 
Arabian  Nights.  I  envied  his  most  remarkable  imagina- 
tion. His  story  had  to  do  with  hunting  meat  for  a 
mining  camp  in  Mexico.  He  got  so  expert  with  a  rifle 
that  he  never  aimed  at  deer.  Just  threw  his  gun,  as  was 
a  habit  of  gun-fighters !  Once  the  camp  was  out  of  meat, 
and  also  he  was  out  of  ammunition.  Only  one  shell  left ! 
He  came  upon  a  herd  of  deer  licking  salt  at  a  deer  lick. 
They  were  small  deer  and  he  wanted  several  or  all  of 
them.  So  he  manoeuvred  around  and  waited  until  five 
of  the  deer  had  lined  up  close  together.  Then,  to  make 
sure,  he  aimed  so  as  to  send  his  one  bullet  through  their 
necks.     Killed  the  whole  five  in  one  shot ! 

We  were  all  reduced  to  a  state  of  mute  helplessness  and 
completely  at  Copple's  mercy.  Next  he  gave  us  one  of 
his  animal  tales.  He  was  hunting  along  the  gulf  shore 
on  the  coast  of  Sonora,  where  big  turtles  come  out  to 
bask  in  the  sun  and  big  jaguars  come  down  to  prowl  for 
meat.  One  morning  he  saw  a  jaguar  jump  on  the  back 
of  a  huge  turtle,  and  begin  to  paw  at  its  neck.  Promptly 
the  turtle  drew  in  head  and  flippers,  and  was  safe  under 
its  shell.  The  jaguar  scratched  and  clawed  at  a  great 
rate,  but  to  no  avail.  Then  the  big  cat  turned  round  and 
seized  the  tail  of  the  turtle  and  began  to  chew  it.  Where- 
upon the  turtle  stuck  out  its  head,  opened  its  huge  mouth 
and  grasped  the  tail  of  the  jaguar.  First  to  give  in  was 
the  cat.     He  let  go  and  let  out  a  squall.     But  the  turtle 


3o6  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

started  to  crawl  off,  got  going  strong,  and  dragged  the 
jaguar  into  the  sea  and  drowned  him.  With  naive 
earnestness  Copple  assured  his  mute  listeners  that  he 
could  show  them  the  exact  spot  in  Sonora  where  this 
happened. 

Retribution  inevitably  overtakes  transgressors.  Cop- 
ple in  his  immense  loquaciousness  was  not  transgressing 
much,  for  he  really  was  no  greater  dreamer  than  I,  but 
the  way  he  put  things  made  us  want  to  see  the  mighty 
hunter  have  a  fall. 

We  rested  the  hounds  next  day,  and  I  was  glad  to  rest 
myself.  About  sunset  Copple  rode  up  to  the  rim  to  look 
for  his  mules.  We  all  heard  him  shoot  eight  times  with 
his  rifle  and  two  with  his  revolver.  Everybody  said: 
"Turkeys!  Ten  turkeys — maybe  a  dozen,  if  Copple  got 
two  in  line!"  And  we  were  all  glad  to  think  so.  We 
watched  eagerly  for  him,  but  he  did  not  return  till  dark. 
He  seemed  vastly  sore  at  himself.  What  a  remarkable 
hard  luck  story  he  told!  He  had  come  upon  a  flock  of 
turkeys,  and  they  were  rather  difficult  to  see.  All  of  them 
were  close,  and  running  fast.  He  shot  eight  times  at  eight 
turkeys  and  missed  them  all.  Too  dark — brush — trees — 
running  like  deer.  Copple  had  a  dozen  excuses.  Then 
he  saw  a  turkey  on  a  log  ten  feet  away.  He  shot  twice. 
The  turkey  was  a  knot,  and  he  had  missed  even  that. 

Thereupon  I  seized  my  opportunity  and  reminded  all 
present  how  Copple  had  called  out:  "Turkey  number 
one!  Turkey  number  two!"  the  day  I  had  missed  so 
many.     Then  I  said : 

"Ben,  you  must  have  yelled  out  to-night  like  this." 
And  I  raised  my  voice  high. 

"Turkey  number  one — Nix!  .  .  .  Turkey  number  two 
— missed,  by  Gosh!  .  .  .  Turkey  number  three — never 
touched  him!  .  .  .  Turkey  number  four — No!  .  .  .  Tur- 
key number  five — Aw,   I'm  shootin'  blank  shells!  .  .  . 


TONTO  BASIN  307 

Turkey  number  six  on  the  log — By  thunder,  i  can't  see 
straight!" 

We  all  had  our  fun  at  Copple's  expense.  The  old  bear 
hunter,  Haught,  rolled  on  the  ground,  over  and  over,  and 
roared  in  his  mirth. 

VII 

Early  next  morning  before  the  sun  had  tipped  the 
pines  with  gold  I  went  down  Barber  Shop  Canyon  with 
Copple  to  look  for  our  horses.  During  the  night  our 
stock  had  been  chased  by  a  lion.  We  had  all  been 
awakened  by  their  snorting  and  stampeding.  We  found 
our  horses  scattered,  the  burros  gone,  and  Copple's 
mules  still  squared  on  guard,  ready  to  fight.  Copple 
assured  me  that  this  formation  of  his  mules  on  guard 
was  an  infallible  sign  of  lions  prowling  around.  One 
of  these  mules  he  had  owned  for  ten  years  and  it  was 
indeed  the  most  intelligent  beast  I  ever  saw  in  the 
woods. 

We  found  three  beaver  dams  across  the  brook,  one 
about  fifty  feet  long,  and  another  fully  two  hundred. 
Fresh  turkey  tracks  showed  in  places,  and  on  the  top 
of  the  longer  dam,  fresh  made  in  the  mud,  were  lion 
tracks  as  large  as  the  crown  of  my  hat.  How  sight  of 
them  made  me  tingle  all  over !  Here  was  absolute  proof 
of  the  prowling  of  one  of  the  great  cats. 

Beaver  tracks  were  everywhere.  They  were  rather 
singular  looking  tracks,  the  front  feet  being  five-toed, 
and  the  back  three-toed,  and  webbed.  Near  the  slides 
on  the  bank  the  water  was  muddy,  showing  that  the 
beaver  had  been  at  work  early.  These  animals  worked 
mostly  at  night,  but  sometimes  at  sunset  and  sunrise. 
They  were  indeed  very  cautious  and  wary.  These  dams 
had  just  been  completed  and  no  aspens  had  yet  been  cut 
for  food.    Beaver  usually  have  two  holes  to  their  home, 


3o8  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

one  under  the  water,  and  the  other  out  on  the  bank.  We 
found  one  of  these  outside  burrows  and  it  was  nearly 
a  foot  wide. 

Upon  our  return  to  camp  with  the  horses  Haught 
said  he  could  put  up  that  lion  for  us,  and  from  the  size 
of  its  track  he  judged  it  to  be  a  big  one.  I  did  not  want 
to  hunt  lions  and  R.  C.  preferred  to  keep  after  bears. 
"Wal,"  said  Haught,  "I'll  take  an  off  day  an'  chase  thet 
lion.    Had  a  burro  killed  here  a  couple  of  years  ago." 

So  we  rode  out  with  the  hounds  on  another  bear  hunt. 
Pyle's  Canyon  lay  to  the  east  of  Dude  Creek,  and  we 
decided  to  run  it  that  day.  Edd  and  Nielsen  started 
down  with  the  hounds.  Copple  and  I  followed  shortly 
afterward  with  the  intention  of  descending  mid-way, 
and  then  working  along  the  ridge  crests  and  promon- 
tories. The  other  boys  remained  on  the  rim  to  take  up 
various  stands  as  occasion  called  for. 

I  had  never  been  on  as  steep  slopes  as  these  under 
the  rim.  They  were  grassy,  brushy,  rocky,  but  it  was 
their  steepness  that  made  them  so  hard  to  travel.  Right 
off,  half  way  down,  we  started  a  herd  of  bucks.  The 
noise  they  made  sounded  like  cattle.  We  found  tracks 
of  half  a  dozen.  "Lots  of  deer  under  the  rim,"  declared 
Copple,  his  eyes  gleaming.  "They're  feedin'  on  acorns. 
Here's  where  you'll  get  your  big  buck."  After  that  I 
kept  a  sharp  lookout,  arguing  with  myself  that  a  buck 
close  at  hand  was  worth  a  lot  of  bears  down  in  the 
brush. 

Presently  we  changed  a  direct  descent  to  work  grad- 
ually along  the  slopes  toward  a  great  level  bench  covered 
with  pines.  We  had  to  cross  gravel  patches  and  pits 
where  avalanches  had  slid,  and  at  last,  gaining  the 
bench  we  went  through  the  pine  grove,  out  to  a  man- 
zanita  thicket,  to  a  rocky  point  where  the  ledges  were 
toi^pling  and  dangerous.     The  stand  here  afforded  a 


TONTO  BASIN  309 

magnificent  view.  We  were  now  down  in  the  thick  of 
this  sloped  and  canyoned  and  timbered  wildness;  no 
longer  above  it,  and  aloof  from  it.  The  dry  smell  of 
pine  filled  the  air.  When  we  finally  halted  to  listen  we 
at  once  heard  the  baying  of  the  hounds  in  the  black 
notch  below  us.  We  watched  and  listened.  And  pres- 
ently across  open  patches  we  saw  the  flash  of  deer,  and 
then  Rock  and  Buck  following  them.  Thus  were  my 
suspicions  of  Rock  fully  confirmed.  Copple  yelled  down 
to  Edd  that  some  of  the  hounds  were  running  deer, 
but  apparently  Edd  was  too  far  away  to  hear. 

Still,  after  a  while  we  heard  the  mellow  tones  of  Edd's 
horn,  calling  in  the  hounds.  And  then  he  blew  the  sig- 
nal to  acquaint  all  of  us  above  that  he  was  going  down 
around  the  point  to  drive  the  next  canyon.  Copple 
and  I  had  to  choose  between  climbing  back  to  the  rim 
or  trying  to  cross  the  slopes  and  head  the  gorges,  and 
ascend  the  huge  ridge  that  separated  Pyle's  Canyon 
from  the  next  canyon.  I  left  the  question  to  Copple, 
with  the  result  that  we  stayed  below. 

We  were  still  high  up,  though  when  we  gazed  aloft 
at  the  rim  we  felt  so  far  down,  and  the  slopes  were  steep, 
stony,  soft  in  places  and  slippery  in  others,  with  deep 
cuts  and  patches  of  manzanita.  No  stranger  was  I 
to  this  beautiful  treacherous  Spanish  brush!  I  shared 
with  Copple  a  dislike  of  it  almost  equal  to  that  inspired 
by  cactus.  We  soon  were  hot,  dusty,  dry,  and  had 
begun  to  sweat.  The  immense  distances  of  the  place 
were  what  continually  struck  me.  Distances  that  were 
deceptive — that  looked  short  and  were  interminable! 
That  was  Arizona.  We  covered  miles  in  our  detours 
and  we  had  to  travel  fast  because  we  knew  Edd  could 
round  the  base  of  the  lower  points  in  quick  time. 

Above  the  head  of  the  third  gorge  Copple  and  I  ran 
across  an  enormous  bear  track,  fresh  in  the  dust,  leading 

21 


3IO  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

along  an  old  bear  trail.  This  track  measured  twelve 
inches.  "He's, an  old  Jasper,  as  Haught  says,"  declared 
Copple.  "Grizzl3^  An' you  can  bet  he  heard  the  dogs 
an'  got  movin'  away  from  here.  But  he  ain't  scared. 
He  was  walkin'." 

I  forgot  the  arduous  toil.  Plow  tight  and  cool  and 
prickling  the  feel  of  my  skin !  The  fresh  track  of  a  big 
grizzly  would  rouse  the  hunter  in  any  man.  We  made 
sure  how  fresh  this  track  was  by  observing  twigs  and 
sprigs  of  manzanita  just  broken.  The  wood  was  green, 
and  wet  with  sap.  Old  Bruin  had  not  escaped  our 
eyes  any  too  soon.  We  followed  this  bear  trail,  evi- 
dently one  used  for  years.  It  made  climbing  easy  for 
us.  Trust  a  big,  heavy,  old  grizzly  to  pick  out  the  best 
traveling  over  rough  country!  This  fellow,  I  con- 
cluded, had  the  eye  of  a  surveyor.  His  trail  led  gradu- 
ally toward  a  wonderful  crag-crowned  ridge  that  rolled 
and  heaved  down  from  the  rim.  It  had  a  dip  or  saddle 
in  the  middle,  and  rose  from  that  to  the  lofty  mesa,  and 
then  on  the  lower  side,  rose  to  a  bare,  round  point  of 
gray  rock,  a  landmark,  a  dome-shaped  tower  where 
the  gods  of  that  wild  region  might  have  kept  their  vigil. 

Long  indeed  did  it  take  us  to  climb  up  the  bear 
trail  to  where  it  crossed  the  saddle  and  went  down 
on  the  other  side  into  a  canyon  so  deep  and  wild  that 
it  was  purple.  This  saddle  was  really  a  remarkable 
place — a  natural  trail  and  outlet  and  escape  for  bears 
traveling  from  one  canyon  to  another.  Our  bear  tracks 
showed  fresh,  and  we  saw  where  they  led  down  a  steep, 
long,  dark  aisle  between  pines  and  spruces  to  a  dense 
black  thicket  below.  The  saddle  was  about  twenty 
feet  wide,  and  on  each  side  of  it  rose  steep  rocks,  afford- 
ing most  effective  stands  for  a  hunter  to  wait  and 
watch. 

We  rested   then,   and  listened.     There  was  only   a 


TONTO  BASIN  311 

little  wind,  and  often  it  fooled  us.  It  sounded  like  the 
baying  of  hounds,  and  now  like  the  hallooing  of  men, 
and  then  like  the  distant  peal  of  a  horn.  By  and  bye 
Copple  said  he  heard  the  hounds.  I  could  not  be  sure. 
Soon  we  indeed  heard  the  deep-sounding,  wild  bay  of 
Old  Dan,  the  course,  sharp,  ringing  bay  of  Old  Tom,  and 
then,  less  clear,  the  chorus  from  the  other  hounds. 
Edd  had  started  them  on  a  trail  up  this  magnificent 
canyon  at  our  feet.  After  a  while  we  heard  Edd's  yell, 
far  away,  but  clear:  "Hi!  Hi!"  We  could  see  a  part 
of  the  thicket,  shaggy  and  red  and  gold;  and  a  mile 
or  more  of  the  opposite  wall  of  the  canyon.  No  rougher, 
wilder  place  could  have  been  imagined  than  this  steep 
slope  of  bluffs,  ledges,  benches,  all  matted  with  brush, 
and  spotted  with  pines.  Holes  and  caves  and  cracks 
showed,  and  yellow  blank  walls,  and  bronze  points, 
and  green  slopes,  and  weathered  slides. 

Soon  the  baying  of  the  hounds  appeared  to  pass 
below  and  beyond  us,  up  the  canyon  to  our  right,  a  cir- 
cumstance that  worried  Copple.  "Let's  go  farther  up," 
he  kept  saying.  But  I  was  loath  to  leave  that  splendid 
stand.  The  baying  of  the  hounds  appeared  to  swing 
round  closer  under  us;  to  ring,  to  swell,  to  thicken  until 
it  was  a  continuous  and  melodious,  wild,  echoing  roar. 
The  narrowing  walls  of  the  canyon  threw  the  echoes 
back  and  forth. 

Presently  I  espied  moving  dots,  one  blue,  one  brown, 
on  the  opposite  slope.  They  were  Haught  and  his  son 
Edd  slowly  and  laboriously  climbing  up  the  steep  bluff. 
How  like  snails  they  climbed !  Theirs  was  indeed  a  task. 
A  yell  pealed  out  now  and  then,  and  though  it  seemed 
to  come  from  an  entirely  different  direction  it  surely 
must  have  come  from  the  Haughts.  Presently  some 
one  high  on  the  rim  answered  with  like  yells.  The 
chase  was  growing  hotter. 


312  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

"They've  got  a  bear  up  somewhere,"  cried  Copple, 
excitedly.    And  I  agreed  with  him. 

Then  we  were  startled  by  the  sharp  crack  of  a  rifle 
from  the  rim. 

"The  ball's  open!  Get  your  pardners,  boys,"  ex- 
claimed Copple,  with  animation. 

"Ben,  wasn't  that  a  .30  Gov't?"  I  asked. 

"Sure  was,"  he  replied.  "Must  have  been  R.  C. 
openin'  up.     Now  look  sharp!" 

I  gazed  everywhere,  growing  more  excited  and 
thrilled.  Another  shot  from  above,  farther  off  and  from 
a  different  rifle,  augmented  our  stirring  expectation. 

Copple  left  our  stand  and  ran  up  over  the  ridge,  and 
then  down  under  and  along  the  base  of  a  rock  wall.  I 
had  all  I  could  do  to  keep  up  w4th  him.  We  got  per- 
haps a  hundred  yards  when  we  heard  the  spang  of 
Haught's  .30  Gov't.  Following  this  his  big,  hoarse 
voice  bawled  out:  "He's  goin'  to  the  left — to  the  left!" 
That  sent  us  right  about  face,  to  climbing,  scrambling, 
running  and  plunging  back  to  our  first  stand  at  the  sad- 
dle, where  we  arrived  breathless  and  eager. 

Edd  was  climbing  higher  up,  evidently  to  reach  the 
level  top  of  the  bluff  above,  and  Haught  was  working 
farther  up  the  canyon,  climbing  a  little.  Copple  yelled 
with  all  his  might:    "Where's  the  bear?" 

"Bar  everywhar!"  pealed  back  Haught's  stentorian 
voice.    How  the  echoes  clapped ! 

Just  then  Copple  electrified  me  with  a  wild  shout. 
"Wehowl  I  see  him.  .  .  .  What  a  whopper!"  He 
threw  up  his  rifle :  spang— spang — spang — spang — spang. 

His  aim  was  across  the  canyon.  I  heard  his  bullets 
strike.  I  strained  my  eyes  in  flashing  gaze  everywhere. 
"Where?   Where?"  I  cried,  wildly. 

"There!"  shouted  Copple,  keenly,  and  he  pointed 
acrcss  the  canyon.     "He's  goin'  over  the  bench — above 


TONTO  BASIN  313 

Edd.  .  .  .  Now  he's  out  of  sight.  Watch  just  over 
Edd.  He'll  cross  that  bench,  go  round  the  head  of  the 
little  canyon,  an'  come  out  on  the  other  side,  under 
the  bare  bluff.  .  .  .  Watch  sharp — right  by  that  big 
spruce  with  the  dead  top.  .  .  .  He's  a  grizzly  an'  as  big 
as  a  horse." 

I  looked  until  my  eyes  hurt.  All  I  said  was:  "Ben, 
you  saw  game  first  to-day."  Suddenly  a  large,  dark 
brown  object,  furry  and  grizzled,  huge  and  round, 
moved  out  of  the  shadow  under  the  spruce  and  turned 
to  go  along  the  edge  in  the  open  sunlight. 

"Oh!  look  at  him!"  I  yelled.  A  strong,  hot  gust  of 
blood  ran  all  over  me  and  I  thrilled  till  I  shook.  When 
I  aimed  at  the  bear  I  could  see  him  through  the  circle 
of  my  peep  sight,  but  when  I  moved  the  bead  of  the  front 
sight  upon  him  it  almost  covered  him  up.  The  distance 
was  far — more  than  a  thousand  yards — over  half  a 
mile — we  calculated  afterward.  But  I  tried  to  draw 
a  bead  on  the  big,  wagging  brown  shape  and  fired  till 
my  rifle  was  empty. 

Meanwhile  Copple  had  reloaded.  "You  watch  while 
I  shoot,"  he  said.    "Tell  me  where  I'm  hittin'." 

Wonderful  was  it  to  see  how  swiftly  he  could  aim 
and  shoot.  I  saw  a  puff  of  dust.  "Low,  Ben!"  Spang 
rang  his  rifle.  "High!"  Again  he  shot,  wide  this 
time.  He  emptied  his  magazine.  "Smoke  him  now!" 
he  shouted,  gleefully.     "I'll  watch  while  you  shoot." 

"It's  too  far,  Ben,"  I  replied,  as  I  jammed  the  last 
shell  in  the  receiver. 

"No — no.  It's  only  we  don't  hold  right.  Aim  a 
little  coarse,"  said  Copple.  "Gee,  ain't  he  some  bear! 
'No  scared  tall,'  as  the  Jap  says.  .  .  .  He's  one  of  the 
old  sheep-killers.  He'll  weigh  half  a  ton.  Smoke  him 
now!" 

My  excitement  was  intense.     It  seemed,   however, 


314  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

I  was  most  consumed  with  admiration  for  that  grizzly. 
Not  in  the  least  was  he  afraid.  He  walked  along  the 
rough  places,  trotted  along  the  ledges,  and  here  and 
there  he  halted  to  gaze  below  him.  I  waited  for  one  of 
these  halts,  aimed  a  trifle  high,  and  fired.  The  grizzly 
made  a  quick,  angry  movement  and  then  jumped  up  on 
a  ledge.    He  jumped  like  a  rabbit. 

"You  hit  close  that  time,"  yelled  Ben.  "Hold  the 
same  way — a  little  coarser." 

My  next  bullet  struck  a  puff  from  rock  above  the 
bear,  and  my  third,  hitting  just  in  front  of  him,  as  he 
was  on  a  yellow  ledge,  covered  him  with  dust.  He 
reared,  and  wheeling,  sheered  back  and  down  the  step 
he  had  mounted,  and  disappeared  in  a  clump  of  brush. 
I  shot  into  that.  We  heard  my  bullet  crack  the  twigs. 
But  it  routed  him  out,  and  then  my  last  shot  hit  far 
under  him. 

Copple  circled  his  mouth  with  his  hands  and  bellowed 
totheHaughts:  "Climb!  Climb!  Hurry!  Hurry!  He's 
just  above  you — under  that  bluff." 

The  Haughts  heard,  and  evidently  tried  to  do  all  in 
their  power,  but  they  moved  like  snails.  Then  Copple 
fired  five  more  shots,  quick,  yet  deliberate,  and  he  got 
through  before  I  had  reloaded ;  and  as  I  began  my  third 
magazine  Copple  was  so  swift  in  reloading  that  his  first 
shot  mingled  with  my  second.  How  we  made  the 
welkin  ring!  Wild  yells  pealed  down  from  the  rim. 
Somewhere  from  the  purple  depths  below  Nielsen's 
giant's  voice  rolled  up.  The  Haughts  opposite  answered 
with  their  deep,  hoarse  yells.  Old  Dan  and  Old  Tom 
bayed  like  distant  thunder.  The  young  hounds  let  out 
a  string  of  sharp,  keen  yelps.  Copple  added  his  Indian 
cry^  high-pitched  and  wild,  to  the  pandemonium.  But 
I  could  not  shoot  and  screech  at  one  and  the  same  time. 

"Hurry,  Ben,"  I  said,  as  I  finished  my  third  set  of 


TONTO  BASIN  315 

five  shots,  the  last  shot  of  which  was  my  best  and 
knocked  dirt  in  the  face  of  the  grizzly. 

Again  he  reared.  This  time  he  appeared  to  locate 
our  direction.  Above  the  bedlam  of  yells  and  bays  and 
yelps  and  echoes  I  imagined  I  heard  the  grizzly  roar. 
He  was  now  getting  farther  along  the  base  of  the  bluff, 
and  I  saw  that  he  would  escape  us.  My  rifle  barrel 
was  hot  as  fire.  My  fingers  were  all  thumbs.  I  jammed 
a  shell  into  the  receiver.  My  last  chance  had  fled! 
But  Copple's  big,  brown,  swift  hands  fed  shells  to  his 
magazine  as  ears  of  corn  go  to  a  grinder.  He  had  a  way 
of  poking  the  base  of  a  shell  straight  down  into  the 
receiver  and  making  it  snap  forward  and  down.  Then 
he  fired  five  more  shots  as  swiftly  as  he  had  reloaded. 
Some  of  these  hit  close  to  our  quarry.  The  old  grizzly 
slowed  up,  and  looked  across,  and  wagged  his  huge  head. 

"My  gun's  on  fire  all  right,"  said  Copple,  grimly,  as 
he  loaded  still  more  rapidly.  Carefully  he  aimed  and 
pulled  trigger.  The  grizzly  gave  a  spasmodic  jerk  as 
if  stung  and  suddenly  he  made  a  prodigious  leap  off  a 
ledge,  down  into  a  patch  of  brush,  where  he  threshed 
like  a  lassoed  elephant. 

"Ben,  you  hit  him!"    I  yelled,  excitedly. 

"Only  made  him  mad.  He's  not  hurt.  .  .  .  See,  he's 
up  again.  .  .  .  Will  you  look  at  that ! " 

The  grizzly  appeared  to  roll  out  of  the  brush,  and  like 
a  huge  furry  ball  of  brown,  he  bounced  down  the  thick- 
eted  slope  to  an  open  slide  where  he  unrolled,  and 
stretched  into  a  run.  Copple  got  two  more  shots  before 
he  was  out  of  sight. 

"Gone!"  ejaculated  Copple.  "An'  we  never  fetched 
him!  .  .  .  He  ain't  hurt.  Did  you  see  him  pile  down 
an'  roll  off  that  slope?  .  .  .  Let's  see.  I  got  twenty- 
three  shots  at  him.    How  many  had  you?" 

"I  had  fifteen." 


3i6  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

"Say,  it  was  some  fun,  wasn't  it — smokin'  him  along 
there?  But  we  ought  to  have  fetched  the  old  sheep- 
killer.  .  .  .  Wonder  what's  happened  to  the  other 
fellows." 

We  looked  about  us.  Not  improbably  the  exciting 
moments  had  been  few  in  number,  yet  they  seemed  long 
indeed.  The  Haughts  had  gotten  to  the  top  of  the  bluff, 
and  were  tearing  through  the  brush  toward  the  point 
Copple  had  designated.     They  reached  it  too  late. 

"Where  is  he?"  yelled  Edd. 

"Gone!"  boomed  Copple.  "Runnin'  down  the 
canyon.     Call  the  dogs  an'  go  down  after  him." 

When  the  Haughts  came  out  into  the  open  upon  that 
bench  one  of  the  pups  and  the  spotted  hound.  Rock, 
were  with  them.  Old  Dan  and  Old  Tom  were  baying  up 
at  the  head  of  the  canyon,  and  Sue  could  be  heard 
yelping  somewhere  else.  Bear  trails  seemingly  were 
abundant  near  our  whereabouts.  Presently  the  Haughts 
disappeared  at  the  back  of  the  bench  where  the  old 
grizzly  had  gone  down,  and  evidently  they  put  the  two 
hounds  on  his  trail. 

"That  grizzly  will  climb  over  round  the  lower  end  of 
this  ridge,"  declared  Copple.     "We  want  to  be  there." 

So  we  hurriedly  left  our  stand,  and  taking  to  the 
south  side  of  the  ridge,  we  ran  and  walked  and  climbed 
and  plunged  down  along  the  slope.  Keeping  up  with 
Copple  on  foot  was  harder  than  riding  after  Edd  and 
George.  When  soon  we  reached  a  manzanita  thicket 
I  could  no  longer  keep  Copple  in  sight.  He  was  so 
powerful  that  he  just  crashed  through,  but  I  had  to 
worm  my  way,  and  walk  over  the  tops  of  the  bushes, 
like  a  tight-rope  performer.  Of  all  strong,  thick,  spiky 
brush  manzanita  was  the  worst. 

In  half  an  hour  I  joined  Copple  at  the  point  under  the 
dome-topped  end  of  the  ridge,  only  to  hear  the  hounds 


TONTO  BASIN  317 

apparently  working  back  up  the  canyon.  There  was 
nothing  for  us  to  do  but  return  to  our  stand  at  the  saddle. 
Copple  hurried  faster  than  ever.  But  I  had  begun  to 
tire  and  I  could  not  keep  up  with  him.  But  as  I  had  no 
wild  cravings  to  meet  that  old  grizzly  face  to  face  all  by 
myself  in  a  manzanita  thicket  I  did  manage  by  des- 
perate efforts  to  keep  the  Indian  in  sight.  When  I 
reached  our  stand  I  was  wet  and  exhausted.  After  the 
hot,  stifling,  dusty  glare  of  the  yellow  slope  and  the  burn- 
ing of  the  manzanita  brush,  the  cool  shade  was  a  welcome 
change. 

Somewhere  all  the  hounds  were  baying.  Not  for  some 
time  could  we  locate  the  Haughts.  Finally  with  the  aid 
of  my  glass  we  discovered  them  perched  high  upon  the 
bluff  above  where  our  grizzly  had  gone  round.  It  ap- 
peared that  Edd  was  pointing  across  the  canyon  and  his 
father  was  manifesting  a  keen  interest.  We  did  not 
need  the  glass  then  to  tell  that  they  saw  a  bear.  Both 
leveled  their  rifles  and  fired,  apparently  across  the 
canyon.     Then  they  stood  like  statues. 

"  I  '11  go  down  into  the  thicket , ' '  said  Copple.  * '  Maybe 
I  can  get  a  shot.  An'  anyway  I  want  to  see  our  grizzly's 
tracks."  With  that  he  started  down,  and  once  on  the 
steep  bear  trail  he  slid  rather  than  walked,  and  soon  was 
out  of  my  sight.  After  that  I  heard  him  crashing 
through  thicket  and  brush.  Soon  this  sound  ceased. 
The  hounds,  too,  had  quit  baying  and  the  wind  had 
lulled.  Not  a  rustle  of  a  leaf!  All  the  hunters  were 
likewise  silent.  I  enjoyed  a  lonely  hour  there  watching 
and  listening,  not  however  without  apprehensions  of  a 
bear  coming  along.  Certain  I  was  that  this  canyon, 
which  I  christened  Bear  Canyon,  had  been  full  of  bears. 

At  length  I  espied  Copple  down  on  the  edge  of  the 
opposite  slope.  The  way  he  toiled  along  proved  how 
rough  was    the    going.     I  watched  him  through  my 


3i8  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

glasses,  and  was  again  impressed  with  the  strange  differ- 
ence between  the  semblance  of  distance  and  the  reality. 
Every  few  steps  Copple  would  halt  to  rest.  He  had  to 
hold  on  to  the  brush  and  in  the  bare  places  where  he 
could  not  reach  a  bush  he  had  to  dig  his  heels  into  the 
earth  to  keep  from  sliding  down.  In  time  he  ascended 
to  the  place  where  our  grizzly  had  rolled  down,  and  from 
there  he  yelled  up  to  the  Haughts,  high  above  him. 
They  answered,  and  soon  disappeared  on  the  far  side  of 
the  bluff.  Copple  also  disappeared  going  round  under 
the  wall  of  yellow  rock.  Perhaps  in  fifteen  minutes  I 
heard  them  yell,  and  then  a  wild  clamor  of  the  hounds. 
Some  of  the  pack  had  been  put  on  the  trail  of  our  grizzly ; 
but  gradually  the  sound  grew  farther  away. 

This  was  too  much  for  me.  I  decided  to  go  down  into 
the  canyon.  Forthwith  I  started.  It  was  easy  to  go 
down !  As  a  matter  of  fact  it  was  hard  not  to  slide  down 
like  a  streak.  That  long,  dark,  narrow  aisle  between  the 
spruces  had  no  charm  for  me  anyway.  Suppose  I  should 
meet  a  bear  coming  up  as  I  was  sliding  down !  I  sheered 
off  and  left  the  trail,  and  also  Copple 's  tracks.  This  was 
a  blunder.  I  came  out  into  more  open  slope,  but  steeper, 
and  harder  to  cling  on.  Ledges  cropped  out,  cliffs  and 
ravines  obstructed  my  passage  and  trees  were  not  close 
enough  to  help  me  much.  Some  long  slopes  of  dark, 
mossy,  bare  earth  I  actually  ran  down,  trusting  to  light 
swift  steps  rather  than  slow  careful  ones.  It  was  exhila- 
rating, that  descent  under  the  shady  spruces.  The  lower 
down  I  got  the  smaller  and  more  numerous  the  trees. 
I  could  see  where  they  left  off  to  the  dense  thicket  that 
choked  the  lower  part  of  the  v-shaped  canyon.  And  I 
was  amazed  at  the  size  and  density  of  that  jungle  of 
scrub  oaks,  maples  and  aspens.  From  above  the  color 
was  a  blaze  of  scarlet  and  gold  and  green,  with  bronze 
tinge. 


TONTO  BASIN  319 

Presently  I  crossed  a  fresh  bear  track,  so  fresh  that  I 
could  see  the  dampness  of  the  dark  earth,  the  rolling  of 
little  particles,  the  springing  erect  of  bent  grasses.  In 
some  places  big  sections  of  earth,  a  yard  wide  had  slipped 
under  the  feet  of  this  particular  bear.  He  appeared  to 
be  working  down.  Right  then  I  wanted  to  go  up !  But 
I  could  not  climb  out  there.  I  had  to  go  down.  Soon 
I  was  under  low-spreading,  dense  spruces,  and  I  had  to 
hold  on  desperately  to  keep  from  sliding.  All  the  time 
naturally  I  kept  a  keen  lookout  for  a  bear.  Every  stone 
and  tree  trunk  resembled  a  bear.  I  decided  if  I  met  a 
grizzly  that  I  would  not  annoy  him  on  that  slope.  I 
would  say:  "Nice  bear,  I  won't  hurt  you!"  Still  the 
situation  had  some  kind  of  charm.  But  to  claim  I  was 
not  frightened  would  not  be  strictly  truthful.  I  slid 
over  the  trail  of  that  bear  into  the  trail  of  another  one, 
and  under  the  last  big  spruce  on  that  part  of  the  slope  I 
found  a  hollow  nest  of  pine  needles  and  leaves,  and  if 
that  bed  was  not  still  warm  then  my  imagination  lent 
considerable  to  the  moment. 

Beyond  this  began  the  edge  of  the  thicket.  It  was 
small  pine  at  first,  so  close  together  that  I  had  to  squeeze 
through,  and  as  dark  as  twilight.  The  ground  was  a 
slant  of  brown  pine  needles,  so  slippery,  that  if  I  could 
not  have  held  on  to  trees  and  branches  I  never  would 
have  kept  my  feet.  In  this  dark  strip  I  had  more  than 
apprehensions.  What  a  comfortable  place  to  encounter 
an  outraged  or  v/ounded  grizzly  bear!  The  manzanita 
thicket  was  preferable.  But  as  Providence  would  have 
it  I  did  not  encounter  one. 

Soon  I  worked  or  wormed  out  of  the  pines  into  the 
thicket  of  scrub  oaks,  maples  and  aspens.  The  change 
was  welcome.  Not  only  did  the  slope  lengthen  out,  but 
the  light  changed  from  gloom  to  gold.  There  was  half 
a  foot  of  scarlet,  gold,  bronze,  red  and  purple  leaves  on 


320  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

the  ground,  and  every  step  I  made  I  kicked  acorns 
about  to  rustle  and  rolL  Bear  sign  was  everywhere, 
tracks  and  trails  and  beds  and  scratches.  I  kept  going 
down,  and  the  farther  down  I  got  the  lighter  it  grew, 
and  more  approaching  a  level.  One  glade  was  strangely 
luminous  and  beautiful  with  a  blending  of  gold  and 
purple  light  made  by  the  sun  shining  through  the  leaves 
overhead  down  upon  the  carpet  of  leaves  on  the  ground. 
Then  I  came  into  a  glade  that  reminded  me  of  Kipling's 
moonlight  dance  of  the  wild  elephants.  Here  the  leaves 
and  fern  were  rolled  and  matted  flat,  smooth  as  if  done 
by  a  huge  roller.  Bears  and  bears  had  lolled  and  slept 
and  played  there.  A  little  below  this  glade  was  a  place, 
shady  and  cool,  where  a  seep  of  water  came  from  under 
a  bank.  It  looked  like  a  herd  of  cattle  had  stamped  the 
earth,  only  the  tracks  were  bear  tracks.  Little  ones  no 
longer  than  a  child's  hand,  and  larger,  up  to  huge  tracks 
a  foot  long  and  almost  as  wide.  Many  were  old,  but 
some  were  fresh.  This  little  spot  smelled  of  bear  so 
strongly  that  it  reminded  me  of  the  bear  pen  in  the 
Bronx  Park  Zoological  Garden.  I  had  been  keen  for 
sight  of  bear  trails  and  scent  of  bear  fur,  but  this  was  a 
little  too  much.  I  thought  it  was  too  much  because  the 
place  was  lonely  and  dark  and  absolutely  silent.  I  went 
on  down  to  the  gully  that  ran  down  the  middle  of  the 
canyon.  It  was  more  open  here.  The  sun  got  through, 
and  there  were  some  big  pines. 

I  could  see  the  bluff  that  the  Haughts  had  climbed  so 
laboriously,  and  now  I  understood  why  they  had  been 
so  slow.  It  was  straight  up,  brush  and  jumbled  rock, 
and  two  hundred  feet  over  my  head.  Somewhere 
above  that  bluff  was  the  bluff  where  our  bear  had 
run  along. 

I  rested  and  listened  for  the  dogs.  There  was  no 
wind  to  deceive  me,  but  I  imagined  I  heard  dogs  every- 


TONTO  BASIN  321 

where.  It  seemed  unwise  for  me  to  go  on  down  the 
canyon,  for  if  I  did  not  meet  the  men  I  would  find  myself 
lost.     As  it  was  I  would  have  my  troubles  climbing  out. 

I  chose  a  part  of  the  thicket  some  distance  above  where 
I  had  come  down,  hoping  to  find  it  more  open,  if  not  less 
steep,  and  not  so  vastly  inhabited  with  bears.  Lo  and 
behold  it  was  worse!  It  was  thicker,  darker,  wilder, 
steeper,  and  there  was,  if  possible,  actually  more  bear  sign. 
I  had  to  pull  myself  up  by  holding  to  the  trees  and 
branches.  I  had  to  rest  every  few  steps.  I  had  to  watch 
and  listen  all  the  time.  Half-way  up  the  trunks  of  the 
aspens  and  oaks  and  maples  were  all  bent  down-hill. 
They  curved  out  and  down  before  the  rest  of  the  tree 
stood  upright.  And  all  the  brush  was  flat,  bending  down 
hill,  and  absolutely  almost  impassable.  This  feature  of 
tree  and  brush  was  of  course  caused  by  the  weight  of 
snow  in  winter.  It  would  have  been  more  interesting 
if  I  had  not  been  so  anxious  to  get  up.  I  grew  hotter 
and  wetter  than  I  had  been  in  the  manzanitas.  More- 
over,: what  with  the  labor  and  worry  and  exhaustion, 
my  apprehensions  had  increased.  They  increased  until 
I  had  to  confess  that  I  was  scared.  Once  I  heard  a 
rustle  and  pad  on  the  leaves  somewhere  below.  That 
made  matters  worse.  Surely  I  would  meet  a  bear.  I 
would  meet  him  coming  down -hill!  And  I  must  never 
shoot  a  bear  coming  down-hill!  Buffalo  Jones  had 
cautioned  me  on'  that  score,  so  had  Scott  Teague,  the 
bear  hunter  of  Colorado,  and  so  had  Haught.  "Don't 
never  shoot  no  ole  bar  comin'  down  hill,  'cause  if  you 
do  he'll  just  roll  up  an'  pile  down  on  you!" 

I  climbed  until  my  tongue  hung  out  and  my  heart  was 
likely  to  burst.  Then  when  I  had  to  straddle  a  tree  to 
keep  from  sliding  down  I  got  desperate  and  mad  and 
hoped  an  old  grizzly  would  happen  along  to  make  an  end 
to  my  misery. 


322  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

It  took  me  an  hour  to  climb  up  that  part  of  the  slope 
which  constituted  the  thicket  of  oak,  maple  and  aspen. 
It  was  half -past  three  when  finally  I  reached  the  saddle 
where  we  had  shot  at  the  grizzly.  I  rested  as  long  as 
I  dared.  I  had  still  a  long  way  to  go  up  that  ridge  to 
the  rim,  and  how  did  I  know  whether  or  not  I  could 
surmount  it 

However,  a  good  rest  helped  to  revive  strength  and 
spirit.  Then  I  started.  Once  above  the  saddle  I  was 
out  clear  in  the  open,  high  above  the  canyons,  and  the 
vast  basin  still  farther  below,  yet  far  indeed  under  the 
pine-fringed  rim  above.  This  clinib  was  all  over  stone. 
The  ridge  was  narrow-crested,  yellow,  splintered  rock, 
with  a  few  dwarf  pines  and  spruces  and  an  occasional 
bunch  of  manzanita.  I  did  not  hear  a  sound  that  I  did 
not  make  myself.  Whatever  had  become  of  the  hounds, 
and  the  other  hunters  ?  The  higher  I  climbed  the  more 
I  liked  it.  After  an  hour  I  was  sure  that  I  could  reach 
the  rim  by  this  route,  and  of  course  that  stimulated  me. 
To  make  sure,  and  allay  doubt,  I  sat  down  on  a  high 
backbone  of  bare  rock  and  studied  the  heave  and  bulge 
of  ridge  above  me.  Using  my  glasses  I  made  sure  that 
I  could  climb  out.  It  would  be  a  task  equal  to  those  of 
lion-hunting  days  with  Jones,  and  it  made  me  happy  to 
realize  that  despite  the  intervening  ten  years  I  was  still 
equal  to  the  task. 

Once  assured  of  this  I  grew  acute  to  the  sensations  of 
the  hour.  This  was  one  of  my  especial  joys  of  the  open — 
to  be  alone  high  on  some  promontory,  above  wild  and 
beautiful  scenery.  The  sun  was  still  an  hour  from  set- 
ting, and  it  had  begun  to  soften,  to  grow  intense,  and  more 
golden.  There  were  clouds  and  lights  that  promised  a 
magnificent  sunset. 

So  I  climbed  on.  When  I  stopped  to  rest  I  would 
shove  a  stone  loose  and  watch  it  heave  and  slide,  and  leap 


TONTO  BASIN  323 

out  and  hurtle  down,  to  make  the  dust  fly,  and  crash 
into  the  thickets,  and  eventually  start  an  avalanche  that 
would  roar  down  into  the  canyon. 

The  Tonto  Basin  seemed  a  vast  bowl  of  rolling,  rough, 
black  ridges  and  canyons,  green  and  dark  and  yellow, 
with  the  great  mountain  ranges  enclosing  it  to  south  and 
west.  The  black-fringed  promontories  of  the  rim,  bold 
and  rugged,  leagues  apart,  stood  out  over  the  void.  The 
colors  of  autumn  gleamed  under  the  cliffs,  everywhere 
patches  of  gold  and  long  slants  of  green  and  spots  of 
scarlet  and  clefts  of  purple. 

The  last  benches  of  that  ridge  taxed  my  waning 
strength.  I  had  to  step  up,  climb  up,  pull  myself  up, 
by  hand  and  knee  and  body.  My  rifle  grew  to  weigh 
a  ton.  My  cartridge  belt  was  a  burden  of  lead  around 
my  waist.  If  I  had  been  hot  and  wet  below  in  the  thicket 
I  wondered  what  I  grew  on  the  last  steps  of  this  ridge. 
Yet  even  the  toil  and  the  pain  held  a  keen  pleasure. 
I  did  not  analyze  my  feelings  then,  but  it  was  good  to  be 
there. 

The  rim-rock  came  out  to  a  point  above  me,  seeming 
unscalable,  all  grown  over  with  brush  and  lichen,  and 
stunted  spruce.  But  by  hauling  myself  up,  and  crawl- 
ing here,  and  winding  under  bridges  of  rock  there,  and 
holding  to  the  brush,  at  last,  panting  and  spent,  I  reached 
the  top. 

I  was  ready  to  drop  on  the  mats  of  pine  needles  and 
lie  there,  unutterably  grateful  for  rest,  when  I  heard  Old 
Tom  baying,  deep  and  ringing  and  close.  He  seemed 
right  under  the  rim  on  the  side  of  the  ridge  opposite  to 
where  I  had  climbed.  I  looked  around.  There  was 
George's  horse  tied  to  a  pine,  and  farther  on  my  own 
horse  Stockings. 

Then  I  walked  to  the  rim  and  looked  down  into  the 
gold  and  scarlet  thicket.     Actually  it  seemed  to  me  then, 


324  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

and  always  will  seem,  that  the  first  object  I  clearly  dis- 
tinguished was  a  big  black  bear  standing  in  an  open  aisle 
at  the  upper  reach  of  the  thicket  close  to  the  cliff.  He 
shone  black  as  shiny  coal.  He  was  looking  down  into 
the  thicket,  as  if  listening  to  the  baying  hound. 

I  could  not  repress  an  exclamation  of  surprise  and 
thrilling  excitement,  and  I  uttered  it  as  I  raised  my  rifle. 
Just  the  instant  I  saw  his  shining  fur  through  the  circle  of 
my  rear  sight  he  heard  me  and  jumped,  and  my  bullet 
missed  him.  Like  a  black  flash  he  was  gone  around  a 
comer  of  gray  ledge. 

"Well!"  I  ejaculated,  suddenly  weak.  "After  all 
this  long  day — to  get  a  chance  like  that — and  miss!" 

All  that  seemed  left  of  that  long  day  was  the  sunset, 
out  of  which  I  could  not  be  cheated  by  blunders  or  bad 
luck.  Westward  a  glorious  golden  ball  blazed  over  the 
rim.  Above  that  shone  an  intense  belt  of  color — 
Coleridge's  yellow  lightning — and  it  extended  to  a  bank 
of  cloud  that  seemed  transparent  purple,  and  above  all 
this  flowed  a  sea  of  purest  blue  sky  with  fleecy  sails  of 
pink  and  white  and  rose,  exquisitely  flecked  with  gold. 

Lost  indeed  was  I  to  weariness  and  time  until  the 
gorgeous  transformation  at  last  ended  in  dull  gray. 
I  walked  along  the  rim,  back  to  where  I  had  tied  my 
horse.  He  saw  me  and  whinnied  before  I  located  the 
spot.  I  just  about  had  strength  enough  left  to  straddle 
him.  And  presently  through  the  twilight  shadows 
I  caught  a  bright  glimmer  of  our  camp-fire.  Supper 
was  ready;  Takahashi  grinned  his  concern  away;  all 
the  men  were  waiting  for  me;  and  like  the  Ancient 
Mariner  I  told  my  tale.  As  I  sat  to  a  bountiful  repast 
regaling  myself,  the  talk  of  my  companions  seemed 
absolutely  satisfying. 

George  Haught,  on  a  stand  at  the  apex  of  the  canyon, 
had  heard  and  seen  a  big  brown  bear  climbing  up  through 


TONTO  BASIN  325 

the  thicket,  and  he  had  overshot  and  missed.  R.  C.  had 
espied  a  big  black  bear  walking  a  slide  some  four  hundred 
yards  down  the  canyon  slope,  and  forgetting  that  he  had 
a  heavy  close-range  shell  in  his  rifle  instead  of  one  of 
high  trajectory,  he  had  aimed  accordingly,  to  undershoot 
half  a  foot  and  thus  lose  his  opportunity.  Nielsen  had 
been  lost  most  of  the  day.  It  seemed  everyivhere  he 
heard  yells  and  bays  down  in  the  canyon,'  and  once  he 
had  heard  a  loud  rattling  crash  of  a  heavy  bear  tearing 
through  the  thicket.  Edd  told  of  the  fearful  climb  he 
and  his  father  had  made,  how  they  had  shot'  at  the 
grizzly  a  long  way  off,  how  funny  another  bear  had  rolled 
around  in'  his  bed  across  the  canyon.  But  the  hounds 
got  too  tired  to  hold  the'  trails  late  in'  the  day.  And 
lastly  Edd  said:  "When  you  an'  Ben  were  smokin'  the 
grizzly  I  could  hear  the  bullets  hit  close  above  us,  an'  I 
was  sure'  scared  stiff  for  fear  you'd  roll  him  down  on  us. 
But  father'  wasn't  scared.  He  said,  'let  the  old  Jasper 
roll  down!    We'll  assassinate  him!' " 

When  the  old  bear  hunter  began  to  tell  his  part  in  the 
day's  adventures  my  pleasure  was  tinglingly  keen  and 
nothing  was  wanting  on  the  moment  except  that  my  boy 
Romer  was  not  there  to  hear. 

"  Wal,  shore  it  was  an  old  bar  day,  "  said  Haught,  with 
quaint  satisfaction.  His  blue  shirt,  ragged  and  torn  and 
black  from  brush,  surely  attested  to  the  truth  of  his  words. 
' '  All  told  we  seen  five  bars.  Two  blacks,  two  browns  an' 
the  old  Jasper.  Some  of  them  big  fellars,  too.  But  we 
missed  seein'  the  boss  bar  of  this  canyon.  When  Old 
Dan  opened  up  first  off  I  wanted  Edd  to  climb  thet  bluff. 
But  Edd  kept  goin'  an'  we  lost  our  chance.  Fer  pretty 
soon  we  heard  a  bustin'  of  the  brush.  My,  but  thet  bar 
was  rockin*  her  off.  He  knocked  the  brush  like  a  wild 
steer,  an'  he  ran  past  us  close — not  a  hundred  yards. 
I  never  heard  a  heavier  bar.  But  we  couldn't  see  him. 
22 


326  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

Then  Edd  started  up,  an'  thet  bluff  was  a  wolf  of  a 
place.  We  was  half  up  when  I  seen  the  grizzly  thet  you 
an'  Ben  smoked  afterward.  He  was  far  off,  but  Edd  an' 
I  lammed  a  couple  after  him  jest  for  luck.  One  of  the 
pups  was  nippin'  his  heels.  Think  it  was  Big  Foot.  .  .  . 
Wal,  thet  was  all  of  thet.  We  plumb  busted  ourselves 
gettin'  on  top  of  the  bench  to  head  off  your  bar.  Only 
we  hadn't  time.  Then  we  worried  along  around  to  the 
top  of  thet  higher  bluff  an'  there  I  was  so  played-out  I 
thought  my  day  had  come.  We  kept  our  eyes  peeled, 
an'  pretty  soon  I  spied  a  big  brown  bar  actin'  queer  in  an 
open  spot  across  the  canyon.  Edd  seen  him  too,  an'  we 
argued  about  what  thet  bar  was  doin'.  He  lay  in  a 
small  open  place  at  the  foot  of  a  spruce.  He  wagged  his 
head  slow  an'  he  made  as  if  to  roll  over,  an'  he  stretched 
his  paws,  an'  acted  shore  queer.  Edd  said:  'Thet  bar's 
crippled.  He's  been  shot  by  one  of  the  boys,  an'  he's 
tryin'  to  get  up.'  But  I  shore  didn't  exactly  agree 
with  Edd.  So  I  was  for  watchin'  him  some  more.  He 
looked  like  a  sick  bar — raisin'  his  head  so  slow  an' 
droppin'  it  so  slow  an*  sort  of  twistin'  his  body.  He 
looked  like  his  back  had  been  broke  an'  he  was  tryin'  to 
get  up,  but  somehow  I  couldn't  believe  thet.  Then  he 
lay  still  an'  Edd  swore  he  was  dead.  Shore  I  got  almost 
to  believin'  thet  myself,  when  he  waked  up.  An'  then 
the  old  scoundrel  slid  around  lazy  like  a  torn  cat  by  the 
fire,  and  sort  of  rolled  on  his  back  an'  stretched.  Next 
he  slapped  at  himself  with  his  paws.  If  he  wasn't  sick 
he  was  shore  actin'  queer  with  thet  canyon  full  of  crackin' 
guns  an'  bayin'  hounds  an'  yellin'  men.  I  begun  to  get 
suspicious.  Shore  he  must  be  a  dyin'  bear.  So  I  said 
to  Edd:  'Let's  bast  him  a  couple  just  fer  luck.'  Wal, 
when  we  shot  up  jumped  thet  sick  bar  quicker'n  you 
could  wink.  An'  he  piled  into  the  thicket  while  I  was 
goin'    down    after    another   shell.  ...  It    shore   was 


TONTO  BASIN  327 

funny.  Thet  old  Jasper  never  heard  the  racket,  an'  if 
he  heard  it  he  didn't  care.  He  had  a  bed  in  thet  sunny- 
spot  an'  he  was  foolin'  around,  playin'  with  himself  like 
a  kitten.  Playin'!  An'  Edd  reckoned  he  was  dyin' 
an'  I  come  shore  near  bein'  fooled.  The  old  Jasper! 
We'll  assassinate  him  fer  thet!" 


VIII 

Five  more  long  arduous  days  we  put  in  chasing  bears 
under  the  rim  from  Pyle's  Canyon  to  Verde  Canyon. 
In  all  we  started  over  a  dozen  bears.  But  I  was  inclined 
to  think  that  we  chased  the  same  bears  over  and  over 
from  one  canyon  to  another.  The  boys  got  a  good  many 
long-range  shots,  which,  ho v/ever,  apparently  did  no  dam- 
age. But  as  for  me,  the  harder  and  farther  I  tramped 
and  the  longer  I  watched  and  waited  the  less  opportunity 
had  I  to  shoot  a  bear. 

This  circumstance  weighed  heavily  upon  the  spirits  of 
my  comrades.  They  wore  their  boots  out,  as  well  as  the 
feet  of  the  hoimds,  tr>'-ing  to  chase  a  bear  somewhere 
near  me.  Aiid  wherever  I  stayed  or  went  there  was  the 
place  the  bears  avoided.  Edd  and  Neilsen  lost  flesh  in 
this  daily  toil.  Haught  had  gloomy  moments.  But  as 
for  me  the  daily  ten-  or  fifteen-mile  grind  up  and  down 
the  steep  craggy  slopes  had  at  last  trained  me  back  to 
my  former  vigorous  condition,  and  I  was  happy.  No  one 
knew  it,  not  even  R.  C,  but  the  fact  was  I  really  did  not 
care  in  the  least  whether  I  shot  a  bear  or  not.  Bears 
were  incidental  to  my  hunting  trip.  I  had  not  a  little 
secret  glee  over  the  praise  accorded  me  by  Copple  and 
Haught  and  Nielsen,  who  all  thought  that  the  way  I 
persevered  was  remarkable.  They  would  have  broken 
their  necks  to  get  me  a  bear.  At  times  R.  C.  when  he 
was  tired  fell  victim  to  discouragement  and  he  would 


328  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

make  some  caustic  remark:  "I  don't  know  about  you. 
I've  a  hunch  you  like  to  pack  a  rifle  because  it's  heavy. 
And  you  go  dreaming  along !  Sometime  a  bear  will  rise 
up  and  swipe  you  one!" 

Takahashi  passed  from  concern  to  grief  over  what  he 
considered  my  bad  luck:  "My  goodnish!  No  see  bear 
to-day?  .  .  .  Maybe  more  better  luck  to-morrow. "  If 
I  could  have  had  some  of  Takahashi's  luck  I  would 
scarcely  have  needed  ,to  leave  camp.  *He  borrowed 
Nielsen's  30-40  rifle  and  went  hunting  without  ever  hav- 
ing shot  it.  He  rode  the  little  buckskin  mustang,  that, 
remarkable  to  state,  had  not  yet  thrown  him  or  kicked 
him.  And  on  that  occasion  he  led  the  mustang  back  to 
camp  with  a  fine  two-point  buck  on  the  saddle.  "Camp 
need  fresh  meat,"  said  the  Jap,  with  his  broad  smile. 
"I  go  hunt.  Ride  along  old  road.  Soon  nice  fat  deer 
walk  out  from  bush.  Twenty  steps  away — maybe.  I 
get  off.  I  no  want  kill  deer  so  close,  so  I  walk  on  him. 
Deer  he  no  scared.  He  jump  off  few  steps — stick  up  his 
ears — look  at  horse  all  same  like  he  thought  him  deer  too. 
I  no  aim  gun  from  shoulder.  I  just  shoot.  No  good. 
Deer  he  run.  I  aim  then — way  front  of  him — shoot — 
deer  he  drop  right  down  dead.  .  .  .  Aw,  easy  to  get 
deer!" 

I  would  have  given  a  great  deal  to  have  been  able  to 
describe  Haught's  face  when  the  Jap  finished  his  story 
of  killing  that  deer.  But  such  feat  was  beyond  human 
ingenuity.  "Wal,"  ejaculated  the  hunter,  "in  all  my 
days  raslin'  round  with  fools  packin'  guns  I  never  seen 
the  likes  of  thet.  No  wonder  the  Japs  licked  the  Rus- 
sians!" This  achievement  of  Takahashi's  led  me  to 
suggest  his  hunting  bear  with  us.  "Aw  sure — I  kill 
bear  too,"  he  said.  Takahashi  outwalked  and  out- 
climbed  us  all.  He  never  made  detours.  He  climbed 
straight  up  or  descended  straight  down.     Copple  and 


TONTO  BASIN  329 

Edd  were  compelled  to  see  him  take  the  lead  and  keep 
it.  What  a  wonderful  climber!  What  a  picture  the 
sturdy  little  brown  man  made,  carrying  a  rifle  longer  than 
himself,  agile  and  sure-footed  as  a  goat,  perfectly  at 
home  in  the  depths  or  on  the  heights !  I  took  occasion 
to  ask  Takahashi  if  he  had  been  used  to  mountain  climb- 
ing in  Japan.  "Aw  sure.  I  have  father  own  whole 
mountain  more  bigger  here.  I  climb  high — saw  wood. 
Leetle  boy  so  big.  "  And  he  held  his  hand  about  a  foot 
from  the  ground.  Thus  for  me  every  day  brought  out 
some  further  interesting  or  humorous  or  remarkable  fea- 
ture pertaining  to  Takahashi. 

The  next  day  added  to  the  discouragement  of  my 
party.  We  drove  Verde  Canyon  and  ran  the  dogs  into 
a  nest  of  steel-traps.  Big  Foot  was  caught  in  one,  and 
only  the  remarkable  size  and  strength  of  his  leg  saved  it 
from  being  broken.  Nielsen  found  a  poor,  miserable, 
little  fox  in  a  trap,  where  it  had  been  for  days,  and  was 
nearly  dead.  Edd  found  a  dead  skunk  in  another.  He 
had  to  call  the  hounds  in.  We  returned  to  camp.  That 
night  was  really  the  only  cheerless  one  the  men  spent 
around  the  fire.  They  did  not  know  what  to  do.  Man- 
ifestly with  trappers  in  a  locality  there  could  be  no  more 
bear  chasing.  Disappointment  perched  upon  the  coun- 
tenances of  the  Haughts  and  Copple  and  Nielsen.  I  let 
them  all  have  their  say.  Finally  Haught  spoke  up: 
"Wal,  fellars,  I'm  figgerin'  hard  an'  I  reckon  here's  my 
stand.  We  jest  naturally  have  to  get  Doc  an'  his  brother 
a  bear  apiece.  Shore  I  expected  we'd  get  'em  a  couple. 
Now,  them  traps  we  seen  are  all  small.  We  didn't  run 
across  no  bear  traps.  An'  I  reckon  we  can  risk  the  dogs. 
We'll  shore  go  back  an'  drive  Verde  Canyon.  We  can't 
do  no  worse  than  break  a  leg  for  a  dog.  I'd  hate  to  see 
thet  happen  to  Old  Dan  or  Tom.  But  we'll  take  a 
chance." 


330  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

After  that  there  fell  a  moment's  silence.  I  could  see 
from  Edd's  face  what  a  serious  predicament  this  was. 
Nothing  was  plainer  than  his  fondness  for  the  hounds. 
Finally  he  said:  "Sure.  We'll  take  a  chance."  Their 
devotion  to  my  interest,  their  simple  earnestness,  warmed 
me  to  them.  But  not  for  all  the  bears  under  the  rim 
would  I  have  been  wittingly  to  blame  for  Old  Dan  or 
Old  Tom  breaking  a  leg, 

"Men,  I've  got  a  better  plan,"  I  said.  "We'll  let  the' 
bears  here  rest  for  a  spell.  Supplies  are  about  gone. 
Let's  go  back  to  Beaver  Dam  camp  for  a  week  or  so.' 
Rest  up  the  hounds.  Maybe  we'll  have  a  storm  and  a 
cold  snap  that  will  improve  conditions.  Then  we'll  come 
back  here.  I'll  send  Haught  down  to  buy  off  the  trap- 
pers. I'll  pay  them  to  spring  their  traps  and  let  us  have 
our  hunt  without  risk  of  the  hounds." 

Instantly  the  men  brightened.  The  insurmountable 
obstacles  seemed  to  melt  away.  Only  Haught  demurred 
a  little  at  additional  and  unreasonable  expense  for  me. 
But  I  cheered  him  over  this  hindrance,  and  the  last  part 
of  that  evening  round  the  camp-fire  was  very  pleasant. 

The  following  morning  we  broke  camp,  and  all  rode 
off,  except  Haught  and  his  son  George,  who  remained 
to  hunt  a  strayed  burro.  "Reckon  thet  lion  eat  him. 
My  best  burro.  He  was  the  one  your  boy  was  always 
playin'  with.     I'm  goin'  to  assassinate  thet  lion." 

On  the  way  back  to  Beaver  Dam  camp  I  happened  to 
be  near  Takahashi  when  he  dismounted  to  shoot  at  a 
squirrel.  Returning  to  get  back  in  the  saddle  the  Jap 
forgot  to  approach  the  mustang  from  the  proper  side. 
There  was  a  scuffle  between  Takahashi  and  the  mustang 
as  to  which  of  them  should  possess  the  bridle.  The  Jap 
lost  this  argument.  Edd  had  to  repair  the  broken 
bridle.  I  watched  Takahashi  and  could  see  that  he  did 
not  like  the  mustang  any  better  than  the  mustang  liked 


TONTO  BASIN  331 

him.  Soon  the  struggle  for  supremacy  would  take  place 
between  this  ill  assorted  rider  and  horse.  I  rather  felt 
inclined  to  favor  the  latter ;  nevertheless  it  was  only  fair 
to  Takahashi  to  admit  that  his  buckskin -colored  mustang 
had  some  mean  traits. 

In  due  time  I  arrived  at  our  permanent  camp,  to  be 
the  last  to  get  in.  Lee  and  his  father  welcomed  us  as 
familiar  faces  in  a  strange  land.  As  I  dismounted  I 
heard  heavy  thuds  and  cracks  accompanied  by  fierce 
utterances  in  a  foreign  tongue.  These  sounds  issued 
from  the  corral. 

"I'll  bet  the  Jap  got  what  was  coming  to  him,"  de- 
clared Lee. 

We  all  ran  toward  the  corral.  A  bunch  of  horses 
obstructed  our  view,  and  we  could  not  see  Takahashi 
until  we  ran  round  to  the  other  side.  The  Jap  had  the 
buckskin  mustang  up  in  a  corner  and  was  vigorously 
whacking  him  with  a  huge  pole.  Not  by  any  means  was 
the  mustang  docile.  Like  a  mule,  he  kicked.  "Hey 
George,"  yelled  Lee,  "don't  kill  him!  What's  the 
matter?" 

Takahashi  slammed  the  mustang  one  parting  blow, 
which  broke  the  club,  and  then  he  turned  to  us.  We 
could  see  from  dust  and  dirt  on  his  person  that  he  had 
lately  been  in  close  relation  to  the  earth.  Takahashi's 
face  was  pale  except  for  a  great  red  lump  on  his  jaw. 
The  Jap  was  terribly  angry.  He  seemed  hurt,  too. 
With  a  shaking  hand  he  pointed  to  the  bruise  on  his  jaw. 

"Look  what  he  do!"  exclaimed  Takahashi.  "He 
throw  me  off!  .  .  .  He  kick  me  awful  hard!  I  kill 
him  sure  next  time." 

Lee  and  I  managed  to  conceal  our  mirth  until  our 
irate  cook  had  gotten  out  of  hearing.  ' '  Look — what — 
he — do! "choked  Lee,  imitating  Takahashi.  Then  Lee 
broke  out  and  roared.     I  had  to  join  him.     I  laughed 


332  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

till  I  cried.  My  family  and  friends  severely  criticise  this 
primitive  trait  of  mine,  but  I  can  not  help  it.  Later  I 
went  to  Takahashi  and  asked  to  examine  his  jaw, 
fearing  it  might  have  been  broken.  This  fear  of  mine, 
however,  was  unfounded.  Moreover  the  Jap  had  recov- 
ered from  his  pain  and  anger.  "More  better  now,"  he 
said,  with  a  grin.     "Maybe  my  fault  anyhow." 

Next  day  we  rested,  and  the  following  morning  was  so 
fine  and  clear  and  frosty  that  we  decided  to  go  hunting. 
We  rode  east  on  the  way  to  See  Lake  through  beautiful 
deep  forest. 

I  saw  a  deer  trotting  away  into  the  woods.  I  jumped 
off,  jerked  out  my  gun,  and  ran  hard,  hoping  to  see  him 
in  an  opening.  Lo!  I  jumped  a  herd  of  six  more  deer, 
some  of  them  bucks  They  plunged  everywhere.  I 
tried  frantically  to  get  my  sights  on  one.  All  I  could 
aim  at  was  bobbing  ears.  I  shot  twice,  and  of  course 
missed.  R.  C.  shot  four  times,  once  at  a  running  buck, 
and  three  at  a  small  deer  that  he  said  was  flying ! 

Here  Copple  and  Haught  caught  up  with  us.  We 
went  on,  and  turned  off  the  road  on  the  blazed  trail  to 
See  Lake.  It  was  pretty  open  forest,  oaks  and  scattered 
pines,  and  a  few  spruce.  The  first  park  we  came  to  was 
a  flat  grassy  open,  with  places  where  deer  licked  the  bare 
earth.  Copple  left  several  pounds  of  salt  in  these  spots. 
R.  C.  and  I  went  up  to  the  upper  end  where  he  had  seen 
deer  before.  No  deer  this  day !  But  saw  three  turkeys, 
one  an  old  gobbler.     We  lost  sight  of  them. 

Then  Copple  and  R.  C.  went  one  way  and  Haught  and 
I  another.  We  went  clear  to  the  rim,  and  then  circled 
around,  and  eventually  met  R.  C.  and  Copple.  To- 
gether we  started  to  return.  Going  down  a  little  draw 
we  found  water,  and  R.  C.  saw  where  a  rock  had  been 
splashed  with  water  and  was  still  wet.  Then  I  saw  a 
turkey  track  upon  this  rock.     We  slipped  up  the  slope, 


TONTO  BASIN  333 

with  me  in  the  lead.  As  I  came  out  on  top,  I  saw  five 
big  gobblers  feeding.  Strange  how  these  game  birds 
thrilled  me!  One  saw  me  and  started  to  run.  Like  a 
streak !  Another  edged  away  into  pines.  Then  I  espied 
one  with  his  head  and  neck  behind  a  tree  and  he  was 
scratching  away  in  the  pine  needles.  I  could  not  see 
much  of  him,  but  that  little  was  not  running,  so  I  drew 
down  upon  him,  tried  to  aim  fine,  and  fired.  He  leaped 
up  with  a  roar  of  wings,  sending  the  dust  and  needles 
flying.  Then  he  dropped  back,  and  like  a  flash  darted 
into  a  thicket. 

Another  flew  straight  out  of  the  glade.  Another  ran 
like  an  ostrich  in  the  same  direction.  I  tried  to  get  the 
sights  on  him.     In  vain ! 

R.  C.  and  Copple  chased  these  two  speeding  turkeys, 
and  Haught  and  I  went  the  other  way.  We  could  find 
no  trace  of  ours.     And  we  returned  to  our  horses. 

Presently  we  heard  shots.  One — two — three — pause 
— then  several  more.  And  finally  more,  to  a  total  num- 
ber of  fifteen.  I  could  not  stand  that  and  I  had  to  hurry 
back  into  the  woods.  I  saw  one  old  gobbler  running 
wildly  around  as  if  lost,  but  I  did  not  shoot  at  him  be- 
cause he  seemed  to  be  in  line  with  the  direction  which 
R.  C.  and  Copple  had  taken.  I  should  have  run  after 
him  until  he  went  some  other  way. 

I  could  not  find  the  hunters,  and  returned  to  our  rest- 
ing place,  which  they  had  reached  ahead  of  me.  They 
had  a  turkey  each,  gobblers  about  two  years  old  Copple 
said. 

R.  C.  told  an  interesting  story  of  how  he  had  run  in 
the  direction  the  two  turkeys  had  taken,  and  suddenly 
flushed  thirty  or  forty  more,  some  big  old  gobblers,  but 
mostly  young.  They  scattered  and  ran.  He  followed 
as  fast  as  he  could,  shooting  a  few  times.  Copple  could 
not  keep  up  with  him,  but  evidently  had  a  few  shots 


334  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

himself.  R.  C.  chased  most  of  the  flock  across  several 
small  canyons,  till  he  came  to  a  deep  canyon.  Here  he 
hoped  to  make  a  killing  when  the  turkeys  ran  up  the  far 
slope.  But  they  flew  across !  And  he  heard  them  cluck- 
ing over  there.  He  crossed,  and  went  on  cautiously. 
Once  he  saw  three  turkey  heads  sticking  above  a  log. 
Wise  old  gobblers!  They  protected  their  bodies  while 
they  watched  for  him.  He  tried  to  get  sidewise  to  them 
but  they  ran  off.  Then  he  followed  until  once  more  he 
heard  clucking. 

Here  he  sat  down,  just  beyond  the  edge  of  a  canyon, 
and  began  to  call  with  his  turkey  wing.  It  thrilled  him 
to  hear  his  calls  answered  on  all  sides.  Here  was  a  won- 
derful opportunity.  He  realized  that  the  turkeys  were 
mostly  young  and  scattered,  and  frightened,  and  wanted 
to  come  together.  He  kept  calling,  and  as  they  neared 
him  on  all  sides  he  felt  something  more  than  the  zest  of 
hunting.  Suddenly  Copple  began  to  shoot.  Spang! 
Spang !  Spang !  R.  C.  saw  the  dust  fly  under  one  tur- 
key. He  heard  the  bullet  glance.  The  next  shot  killed 
a  turkey.  Then  R.  C.  yelled  that  he  was  no  turkey! 
Then  of  that  scattering  flock  he  managed  to  knock  over 
one  for  himself. 

Copple  had  been  deceived  by  the  call  of  an  amateur. 
That  flattered  R.  C,  but  he  was  keenly  disappointed 
that  Copple  had  spoiled  the  situation. 

During  the  day  the  blue  sky  was  covered  by  thin  flying 
clouds  that  gradually  thickened  and  darkened.  The 
wind  grew  keener  and  colder,  and  veered  to  the  south- 
west. We  all  said  storm.  There  was  no  sunset 
Darker  clouds  rolled  up,  obliterating  the  few  stars. 

We  went  to  bed.  Long  after  that  I  heard  the  swell 
and  roar  and  crash  and  lull  of  the  wind  in  the  pines,  a 
sound  I  had  learned  to  love  in  Buckskin  Forest  with 
Buffalo  Jones.     At  last  I  fell  asleep. 


TONTO  BASIN  335 

Sometime  in  the  night  I  awoke.  A  fine  rain  was  pat- 
tering on  the  tent.  It  grew  stronger.  After  a  while  I 
went  to  sleep  again.  Upon  awakening  I  found  that  the 
storm  had  struck  with  a  vengeance.  It  was  dull  gray 
daylight,  foggy,  cold,  windy,  with  rain  and  snow. 

I  got  up,  built  a  fire,  puttered  around  the  tents  to 
loosen  the  ground  ropes,  and  found  that  it  was  nipping 
cold.  My  fingers  ached.  The  storm  increased,  and  then 
we  fully  appreciated  the  tent  with  stove.  The  rain 
roared  on  the  tent  roof,  and  all  morning  the  wind  in- 
creased, and  the  air  grew  colder.  I  hoped  it  would  turn 
to  snow. 

Soon  indeed  we  were  storm  bound.  On  the  third  day 
the  wind  reached  a  very  high  velocity.  The  roar  in  the 
pines  was  stupendous.  Many  times  I  heard  the  dull 
crash  of  a  falling  tree.  With  the  ground  saturated  by 
the  copious  rain,  and  the  fury  of  the  storm  blast,  a  great 
many  trees  were  felled.  That  night  it  rained  all  night, 
not  so  hard,  but  steadily,  now  low,  now  vigorously. 
After  morning  snow  began  to  fall.  But  it  did  not  lay 
long.  After  a  while  it  changed  to  sleet.  At  times  the 
dark,  lowering,  scurrying  clouds  broke  to  emit  a  flare  of 
sunshine  and  to  show  a  patch  of  blue.  These  last  how- 
ever were  soon  obscured  by  the  scudding  gray  pall. 
Every  now  and  then  a  little  shower  of  rain  or  sleet  pat- 
tered on  the  tents.     We  looked  for  a  clearing  up. 

That  night  about  eight  o'clock  the  clouds  vanished 
and  stars  shone.  In  the  night  the  wind  rose  and  roared. 
In  the  morning  all  was  dark,  cloudy,  raw,  cold.  But 
the  wind  had  died  out,  and  there  were  spots  of  blue  show- 
ing. These  spots  enlarged  as  the  morning  advanced,  and 
about  nine  the  sun,  golden  and  dazzling,  beautified  the 
forest.     "Bright  sunny  days  will  soon  come  again!" 

It  was  good  to  have  hope  and  belief  in  that. 

All  the  horses  but  Don  Carlos  weathered  the  storm  in 


336  T.\LES  OF  LONELY  TR.\ILS 

good  shape,  Don  lost  considerable  weight.  He  had 
never  before  been  left  with  hobbled  feet  to  shift  for  him- 
self in  a  prolonged  storm  of  rain,  sleet  and  snow.  He 
had  cut  himself  upon  brush,  and  altogether  had  fared 
poorly.  He  showed  plainly  that  he  had  been  neglected. 
Don  was  the  only  horse  I  had  ever  known  of  that  did  not 
welcome  the  wilderness  and  companionship  with  his  kind. 

We  rested  the  following  day.  and  on  the  next  we 
pa.cked  and  started  back  to  Dude  Creek.  It  was  a  cold, 
raw,  bitter  day,  with  a  gale  from  the  north,  such  a  day 
as  I  could  never  have  endured  had  I  not  become  hardened. 
As  it  was  I  almost  enjoyed  wind  and  cold.  What  a 
transformation  in  the  woods!  The  little  lakes  were  all 
frozen  over;  pines,  moss,  grass  were  white  with  frost. 
The  sear  days  had  come.  Not  a  leaf  showed  in  the  aspen 
and  maple  thickets.  The  scrub  oaks  were  shaggy*  and 
ragged,  gray  as  the  rocks.  From  the  rim  the  slopes 
looked  steely  and  dark,  thinned  out,  showing  the  rocks 
and  slides. 

When  we  reached  our  old  camp  in  Barber  Shop  Can^'on 
we  were  all  glad  to  see  Haught's  lost  burro  waiting  for 
ns  there.  Not  a  scratch  showed  on  the  shagg}'  lop- 
eared  little  beast.  Haught  for  once  unhobbled  a  burro 
and  set  it  free  without  a  parting  kick.  Nielsen  too  had 
observed  this  omission  on  Haught 's  part,  Nielsen  was 
a  desert  m^an  and  he  knew  burros.  He  said  prospectors 
were  inclined  to  show  affection  for  burros  by  simdn'- 
CMU.S  and  kicks.  And  Nielsen  told  me  a  stors^  about 
Haught.  It  seem.ed  the  bear  himter  was  noted  for  that 
habit  of  kicking  burros.  Sometimes  he  was  in  fun  and 
sometimes,  when  burros  were  obstinate,  he  was  in  earnest. 
L'pon  one  occasion  a  big  burro  stayed  away  from  camp 
quite  a  long  time — ^long  enough  to  incur  Haught 's  dis- 
pleasure. He  needed  the  burro  and  could  not  find  it, 
and  all  he  could  do  was  to  hunt  for  it.     Upon  returning 


TOXTO  BASIN  337 

to  camp  there  stood  the  big  gray  burro,  lazy  and  fat,  just 
as  if  he  had  been  perfectly  well  behaved.  Haught  put  a 
halter  on  the  burro,  using  strong  language  the  while,  and 
then  he  proceeded  to  exercise  his  habit  of  kicking  burros. 
He  kicked  this  one  until  its  fat  belly  gave  forth  sounds 
exceedingly  like  a  bass  drum.  When  Haught  had  ended 
his  exercise  he  tied  up  the  biirro.  Presently  a  man  came 
running  into'  Haught's  camp.  He  appeared  alarmed. 
He  was  wet  and  panting.  Haught  recognized  him  as  a 
miner  from  a  mine  nearby.  "Hey  Haught,"  panted  the 
miner,  "hev  you  seen — ^your  gray  burro — thet  big  one — 
with  white  face?" 

"Shore,  there  he  is,"  replied  Haught.  "Son  of  a  gun 
jest  rustled  home." 

The  miner  appeared  immensely  relieved.  He  looked 
and  looked  at  the  gray  biirro  as  if  to  make  sure  it  was 
there,  in  the  solid  flesh,  a  really  tangible  object.  Then 
he  said:  "We  was  all  af eared  you'd  kick  the  stuffin's 
out  of  him !  .  .  .  Not  an  hour  ago  he  was  over  at  the 
mine,  an'  he  ate  five  sticks  of  dynamite!  Five  sticks! 
For  Lord's  sake  handle  him  gently!" 

Haught  turned  pale  and  suddenly  sat  down.  "  Ahuh !" 
was  all  he  said.  But  he  had  a  strange  hunted  look.  And 
not  for  a  long  time  did  he  ever  again  kick  a  burro ! 

Himting  conditions  at  Dude  Creek  had  changed 
greatly  to  our  benefit.  The  trappers  had  pulled  up 
stakes  and  gone  to  some  other  section  of  the  country. 
There  was  not  a  hunting  party  within  fifteen  rmles  of  our 
camp.  Leaves  and  acorns  were  all  down;  trails  were 
soft  and  easy  to  travel;  no  dust  rose  on  the  southern 
slopes ;  the  days  were  cold  and  bright ;  in  every  pocket 
and  ravine  there  was  water  for  the  dogs ;  from  any  stand 
we  could  see  into  the  shaggy  thickets  where  before  all 
we  could  see  vras  a  blaze  of  color. 


338  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

In  three  days  we  drove  Pyle's  Canyon,  Dude  Creek, 
and  the  small  adjoining  canyons,  chasing  in  all  nine  bears, 
none  of  which  ran  anywhere  near  R.  C.  or  me.  Old  Dan 
gave  out  and  had  to  rest  every  other  day.  So  the  gloom 
again  began  to  settle  thick  over  the  hopes  of  my  faith- 
ful friends.  Long  since,  as  in  1918,  I  had  given  up  ex- 
pectations of  bagging  a  bear  or  a  buck.  For  R.  C. ,  how- 
ever, my  hopes  still  held  good.  At  least  I  did  not  give 
up  for  him.  But  he  shared  somewhat  the  feelings  of  the 
men.  Still  he  worked  harder  than  ever,  abandoning  the 
idea  of  waiting  on  one  of  the  high  stands,  and  took  to  the 
slopes  under  the  rim  where  he  toiled  down  and  up  all  day 
long.  It  pleased  me  to  learn,  presently,  that  this  ac- 
tivity, strenuous  as  it  was,  became  a  source  of  delight 
to  him.  How  different  such  toil  was  from  waiting  and 
watching  on  the  rim ! 

On  November  first,  a  bitter  cold  morning,  with  ice 
in  the  bright  aii,  we  went  back  to  Pyle's  Canyon,  and 
four  of  us  went  down  with  Edd  and  the  hounds.  We 
had  several  chases,  and  about,  the  middle  of  the  forenoon 
I  found  myself  alone,  making  tracks  for  the  saddle  over- 
looking Bear  Canyon.  Along  the  south  side  of  the  slope, 
in  the  still  air  the  sun  was  warm,  but  when  I  got  up  onto 
the  saddle,  in  an  exposed  place,  the  wind  soon  chilled  me 
through.  I  would  keep  my  stand  until  I  nearly  froze, 
then  I  had  to  go  around  to  the  sunny  sheltered  side  and 
warm  up.  The  hounds  finally  got  within  hearing  again, 
and  eventually  appeared  to  be  in  Bear  Canyon,  toward 
the  mouth.  I  decided  I  ought  to  go  round  the  ridge  on 
the  east  side  and  see  if  I  could  hear  better.  Accord- 
ingly I  set  off,  and  the  hard  going  over  the  sunny  slope 
was  just  what  I  needed.  When  I  reached  the  end  of  the 
ridge,  under  the  great  dome,  I  heard  the  hounds  below 
me,  somewhat  to  my  left.  Running  and  plowing  down 
through  the  brush  I  gained  the  edge  of  the  bluff,  just  in 


TONTO  BASIN  339 

time  to  see  some  of  the  hounds  passing  on.  They  had 
run  a  bear  through  that  thicket,  and  if  I  had  been  there 
sooner  I  would  have  been  fortunate.  But  too  late!  I 
worked  around  the  head  of  this  canyon  and  across  a  wide 
promontory.  Again  I  heard  the  hounds  right  under  me. 
They  came  nearer,  and  soon  I  heard  rolling  rocks  and 
cracking  brush,  which  sounds  I  believed  were  made  by 
a  bear.  After  a  while  I  espied  Old  Tom  and  Rock  work- 
ing up  the  canyon  on  a  trail.  Then  I  was  sure  I  would 
get  a  shot.  Presently,  however.  Old  Tom  left  the  trail 
and  started  back.  Rock  came  on,  climbed  the  ridge, 
and  hearing  me  call  he  came  to  me.  I  went  over  to  the 
place  where  he  had  climbed  out  and  found  an  enormous 
bear  track  pointing  in  the  direction  the  hounds  had  come. 
They  had  back-trailed  him.  Rock  went  back  to  join 
Old  Tom.  Some  of  the  pack  were  baying  at  a  great  rate 
in  the  mouth  of  the  next  canyon.  But  an  impassable 
cliff  prevented  me  from  working  around  to  that  point.  So 
I  had  to  address  myself  to  the  long  steep  climb  upward. 
I  had  not  gone  far  when  I  crossed  the  huge  bear  track 
that  Rock  and  Old  Tom  had  given  up.  This  track  was 
six  inches  wide  and  ten  inches  long.  The  bear  that  had 
made  it  had  come  down  this  very  morning  from  over  the 
ridge  east  of  Bear  Canyon.  I  trailed  him  up  this  ridge, 
over  the  steepest  and  roughest  and  wildest  part  of  it, 
marveling  at  the  enormous  steps  and  jumps  he  made,  and 
at  the  sagacity  which  caused  him  to  choose  this  route 
instead  of  the  saddle  trail  where  I  had  waited  so  long. 
His  track  led  up  nearly  to  the  rim  and  proved  how  he  had 
climbed  over  the  most  rugged  break  in  the  ridge.  Indeed 
he  was  one  of  the  wise  old  scoundrels.  When  I  reached 
camp  I  learned  that  Sue  and  several  more  of  the  hounds 
had  held  a  bear  for  some  time  in  the  box  of  the  canyon 
just  beyond  where  I  had  to  give  up.  Edd  and  Nielsen 
were  across  this  canyon,  unable  to  go  farther,  and  then 


340  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

yelled  themselves  hoarse,  trying  to  call  some  of  us.  I 
asked  Edd  if  he  saw  the  bear.  "Sure  did,"  replied  Edd. 
"One  of  them  long,  lean,  hungry  cinnamons."  I  had  to 
laugh,  and  told  how  near  I  had  come  to  meeting  a  bear 
that  was  short,  fat,  and  heavy:  "One  of  the  old  Jasper 
scoundrels!" 

That  night  at  dark  the  wind  still  blew  a  gale,  and 
seemed  more  bitterly  cold.  We  hugged  the  camp-fire. 
My  eyes  smarted  from  the  smoke  and  my  face  grew  black. 
Before  I  went  to  bed  I  toasted  myself  so  thoroughly  that 
my  clothes  actually  burned  me  as  I  lay  down.  But  they 
heated  the  blankets  and  that  made  my  bed  snug  and  soon 
I  was  in  the  land  of  dreams.  During  the  night  I  awoke. 
The  wind  had  lulled.  The  canopy  above  was  clear,  cold, 
starry,  beautiful.  When  we  rolled  out  the  mercury 
showed  ten  above  zero.  Perhaps  looking  at  the  ther- 
mometer made  us  feel  colder,  but  in  any  event  we  would 
have  had  to  move  about  to  keep  warm.  I  built  a  fire  and 
my  hands  were  blocks  of  ice  when  I  got  the  blaze  stirring. 

That  day,  so  keen  and  bright,  so  wonderful  with  its 
clarity  of  atmosphere  and  the  breath  of  winter  through 
the  pines,  promised  to  be  as  exciting  as  it  was  beautiful. 
Maybe  this  day  R.  C.  would  bag  a  bear ! 

When  we  reached  the  rim  the  sunrise  was  just  flushing 
the  purple  basin,  flooding  with  exquisite  gold  and  rose 
light  the  slumberous  shadows.  What  a  glorious  wilder- 
ness to  greet  the  eye  at  sunrise!  I  suffered  a  pang  to 
realize  what  men  missed — what  I  had  to  miss  so  many 
wonderful  mornings. 

We  had  made  our  plan.  The  hounds  had  left  a  bear 
in  the  second  canyon  east  of  Dude.  Edd  started  down. 
Copple  and  Takahashi  followed  to  hug  the  lower  slopes. 
Nielsen  and  Haught  and  George  held  to  the  rim  to  ride 
east  in  case  the  hounds  chased  a  bear  that  way.  And 
R.  C.  and  I  were  to  try  to  climb  out  and  down  a  thin 


TONTO  BASIN  341 

rock-crested  ridge  which,  so  far  as  Haught  knew,  no  one 
had  ever  been  on. 

Looked  at  from  above  this  ridge  was  indeed  a  beautiful 
and  rugged  backbone  of  rock,  sloping  from  the  rim,  ex- 
tending far  out  and  down — a  very  narrow  knife-edge 
extended  promontory,  green  with  cedar  and  pine,  yellow 
and  gray  with  its  crags  and  rocks.  A  craggy  point  com- 
parable to  some  of  those  in  the  Grand  Canyon!  We 
had  to  study  a  way  to  get  across  the  first  deep  fissures, 
and  eventually  descended  far  under  the  crest  and  climbed 
back.  It  was  desperately  hard  work,  for  we  had  so  little 
time.  R.  C.  was  to  be  at  the  middle  of  that  ridge  and  I 
at  the  end  in  an  hour.  Like  Trojans  we  worked.  Some 
slippery  pine-needle  slopes  we  had  to  run  across,  for 
light  quick  steps  were  the  only  means  of  safe  travel. 
And  that  was  not  safe!  When  we  surmounted  to  the 
crest  we  found  a  jumble  of  weathered  rocks  ready  to 
slide  down  on  either  side.  Slabs,  pyramids,  columns, 
shale,  rocks  of  all  shapes  except  round,  lay  toppling  along 
the  heaved  ridge.  It  seemed  the  whole  ridge  was  ready 
to  thunder  down  into  the  abyss.  Half  a  mile  down  and 
out  from  the  rim  we  felt  lost,  marooned.  But  there  was 
something  splendidly  thrilling  in  our  conquest  of  that 
narrow  upflung  edge  of  mountain.  Twice  R.  C.  thought 
we  would  have  to  abandon  further  progress,  but  I  found 
ways  to  go  on.  How  lonely  and  wild  out  there!  No 
foot  save  an  Indian's  had  ever  trod  those  gray  rocks  or 
brown  mats  of  pine  needles. 

Before  we  reached  the  dip  or  saddle  where  R.  C.  was 
to  make  his  stand  the  hounds  opened  up  far  below.  The 
morning  was  perfectly  still,  an  unusual  occurrence  there 
along  the  rim.  What  wild  music!  Then  Edd's  horn 
pealed  out,  ringing  melody,  a  long  blast  keen  and  clear, 
telling  us  above  that  he  had  started  a  bear.  That  made 
us  hurry.  We  arrived  at  the  head  of  an  incline  leading 
23 


342  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

down  to  R.  C.'s  stand.  As  luck  would  have  it  the  place 
was  ideal  for  a  bear,  but  risky  for  a  hunter.  A  bear 
could  come  four  ways  without  being  seen  until  he  was 
close  enough  to  kill  a  man.  We  hurried  on.  At  the 
saddle  there  was  a  broad  bear  trail  with  several  other 
trails  leading  into  it.  Suddenly  R.  C.  halted  me  with  a 
warning  finger.     ' '  Listen ! " 

I  heard  a  faint  clear  rifle  shot.  Then  another,  and  a 
fainter  yell.  We  stood  there  and  counted  eleven  more 
shots.  Then  the  bay  of  the  hounds  seemed  to  grow 
closer.  We  had  little  time  to  pick  and  choose  stands. 
I  had  yet  to  reach  the  end  of  the  ridge — a  task  requiring 
seven-league  boots.  But  I  took  time  to  choose  the  best 
possible  stand  for  R.  C.  and  that  was  one  where  a  bear 
approaching  from  only  the  east  along  under  the  ridge 
could  surprise  him.  In  bad  places  like  this  we  always 
tried  to  have  our  minds  made  up  what  to  do  and  where 
to  get  in  case  of  being  charged  by  a  wounded  grizzly. 
In  this  instance  there  was  not  a  rock  or  a  tree  near  at 
hand.  "R.  C.  you'll  have  to  stand  your  ground  and  kill 
him,  that's  all,"  I  declared,  grimly.  "But  it's  quiet. 
You  can  hear  a  bear  coming.  If  you  do  hear  one — 
wait — and  make  sure  your  first  shot  lets  him  down." 

"Don't  worry.  I  could  hear  a  squirrel  coming  over 
this  ground,"  replied  R.  C. 

Then  I  went  on,  not  exactly  at  ease  in  mind,  but 
stirred  and  thrilled  to  the  keen  charged  atmosphere.  I 
had  to  go  around  under  the  base  of  a  rocky  ledge,  over 
rough  ground.  Presently  I  dropped  into  a  bear  trail, 
well  trodden.  I  followed  it  to  a  corner  of  cliff  where  it 
went  down.  Then  I  kept  on  over  loose  rock  and  bare 
earth  washed  deep  in  ruts.  I  had  to  leap  these.  Per- 
haps in  ten  minutes  I  had  traveled  a  quarter  of  a  mile  or 
less.  Then  spang!  R.  C.'s  rifle-shot  halted  me.  So 
clear  and  sharp,  so  close,  so  startling!     I  was  thrilled, 


TONTO  BASIN  343 

delighted — he  had  gotten  a  shot.  I  wanted  to  yell  my 
pleasure.  My  blood  warmed  and  my  nerves  tingled. 
Swiftly  my  thoughts  ran — bad  luck  was  nothing — a  man 
had  only  to  stick  at  a  thing — what  a  fine,  sharp,  wonder- 
ful day  for  adventure!  How  the  hounds  bayed!  Had 
R.  C.  sighted  a  bear  somewhere  below  ?  Suddenly  the  still 
air  split — spang!  R.  C.'s  second  shot  gave  me  a  shock. 
My  breast  contracted.  I  started  back.  "Suppose  it 
was  a  grizzly — on  that  bad  side!"  I  muttered.  Spang! 
...  I  began  to  run.  A  great  sweeping  wave  of  emotion 
charged  over  me,  swelling  all  m.y  veins  to  the  bursting 
point.  Spang!  My  heart  came  to  my  throat.  Leaping 
the  ruts,  bounding  like  a  sheep  from  rock  to  rock,  I  cov- 
ered my  back  tracks.  All  inside  me  seemed  to  flutter, 
yet  I  felt  cold  and  hard — a  sickening  sense  of  reproach 
that  I  had  left  my  brother  in  a  bad  position.  Spang! 
His  fifth  and  last  shot  followed  swiftly  after  the  fourth 
— too  swift  to  be  accurate.  So  hurriedly  a  man  would 
act  in  close  quarters.  R.  C.  now  had  an  empty  rifle! 
.  .  .  Like  a  flash  I  crossed  that  slope  leading  to  the 
rocks,  and  tore  around  the  cliff  at  such  speed  that  it  was 
a  wonder  I  did  not  pitch  down  and  break  my  neck.  How 
long — how  terribly  long  I  seemed  in  reaching  the  corner 
of  cliff!  Then  I  plunged  to  a  halt  with  eyes  darting 
everywhere. 

R.  C.  was  not  in  sight.  The  steep  curved  neck  of 
slope  seemed  all  rocks,  all  trees,  all  brush.  Then  I 
heard  a  wild  hoarse  bawl  and  a  loud  crashing  of  brush. 
My  gaze  swerved  to  an  open  spot.  A  patch  of  manza- 
nita  seemed  to  blur  round  a  big  bear,  standing  up, 
fighting  the  branches,  threshing  and  growling.  But 
where  was  R.  C.  ?  Fearfully  my  gaze  peered  near  and 
all  around  this  wounded  bear.  "Hey  there!"  I  yelled 
with  all  my  might. 

R.  C.'s  answer  was  another  spang.     I  heard  the  bullet 


344  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

hit  the  bear.  It  must  have  gone  clear  through  him  for 
I  saw  bits  of  fur  and  manzanita  fly.  The  bear  plunged 
out  of  the  bushes — out  of  my  sight.  How  he  crashed 
the  brush — rolled  the  rocks!  I  listened.  Down  and 
down  he  crashed.  Then  the  sound  changed  somewhat. 
He  was  rolling.  At  last  that  thumping  sound  ceased,  and 
after  it  the  roll  of  rocks. 

"Are  you — all  right?"  I  shouted. 

Then,  after  a  moment  that  made  me  breathless,  I 
heard  R.  C.  laugh,  a  little  shakily.  "Sure  am.  .  .  . 
Did  you  see  him? " 

"Yes.     I  think  he's  your  bear." 

"I'm  afraid  he's  got  away.  The  hounds  took  another 
bear  down  the  canyon.     What'll  we  do?" 

"Come  on  down,"  I  said. 

Fifty  yards  or  more  down  the  slope  we  met.  I  showed 
him  a  great  splotch  of  blood  on  a  flat  stone.  "We'll 
find  him  not  far  down,"  I  said.  So  we  slid  and  crawled, 
and  held  to  brush  and  rocks,  following  that  bloody  trail 
until  we  came  to  a  ledge.  From  there  I  espied  the  bear 
lodged  against  a  manzanita  bush.  He  lay  on  his  back, 
all  four  paws  extended,  and  he  was  motionless.  R.  C. 
and  I  sat  down  right  there  on  the  ledge. 

"Looks  pretty  big — black  and  brown— mostly  brown," 
I  said.     "I'm  glad,  old  man,  you  stuck  it  out." 

"Big!  .  .  ."  exclaimed  R.  C.  with  that  same  pe- 
culiar little  laugh.  "He  doesn't  look  big  now.  But  up 
there  he  looked  like  a  hill.  .  .  .  What  do  you  think  ? 
He  came  up  that  very  way  you  told  me  to  look  out  for. 
And  if  I  hadn't  had  ears  he'd  got  right  on  me.  As  it  was, 
when  I  heard  little  rolling  stones,  and  then  saw  him,  he 
was  almost  on  a  level  with  me.  My  nerve  was  all 
right.  I  knew  I  had  him.  And  I  made  sure  of  my  first 
shot.  I  knocked  him  flat.  But  he  got  up — let  out  an 
awful  snarl — and  plunged  my  way.     I  can't  say  I  know 


TONTO  BASIN  345 

he  charged  me.  Only  it  was  just  the  same  as  if  he  had ! 
...  I  knocked  him  down  again  and  this  time  he  began 
to  kick  and  jump  down  the  slope.  That  was  my  best 
shot.  Think  I  missed  him  the  next  three.  You  see  I 
had  time  to  get  shaky.  If  he  had  kept  coming  at  me — 
good  night!  ...  I  had  trouble  loading.  But  when  I 
got  ready  again  I  ran  down  and  saw  him  in  that  bush. 
Wasn't  far  from  him  then.  When  he  let  out  that  bawl 
he  saw  me.  I  don't  know  much  about  bears,  but  I  know 
he  wanted  to  get  at  me.  And  I'm  sure  of  what  he'd  have 
done.  ...  I  didn't  miss  my  last  shot." 

We  sat  there  a  while  longer,  slowly  calming  down. 
Wonderful  indeed  had  been  some  of  the  moments  of 
thrill,  but  there  had  been  others  not  conducive  to  happi- 
ness. Why  do  men  yearn  for  adventure  in  wild  moments 
and  regret  the  risks  and  spilled  blood  afterward? 

IX 

The  hounds  enjoyed  a  well-earned  rest  the  next  day. 
R.  C.  and  I,  behind  Haught's  back,  fed  them  all  they 
could  eat.  The  old  hunter  had  a  fixed  idea  that  dogs 
should  be  kept  lean  and  hungry  so  they  would  run  bears 
the  better.  Perhaps  he  was  right.  Only  I  could  not 
withstand  Old  Dan  and  Old  Tom  as  they  limped  to  me, 
begging  and  whining.  Yet  not  even  sore  feet  and  hunger 
could  rob  these  grand  old  hounds  of  their  dignity.  For 
an  hour  that  morning  I  sat  beside  them  in  a  sunny  spot. 

In  the  afternoon  Copple  took  me  on  a  last  deer  hunt 
for  that  trip.  We  rode  down  the  canyon  a  mile,  and 
climbed  out  on  the  west  slope.  Haught  had  described 
this  country  as  a  "wolf"  to  travel.  He  used  that  word 
to  designate  anything  particularly  tough.  We  found  the 
ridge  covered  with  a  dense  forest,  in  places  a  matted 
jungle  of  pine  saplings.     These  thickets  were  impene- 


Jf^ 


TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 


trable.  Heavy  snows  had  bent  the  pines  so  that  they 
grew  at  an  angle.  We  found  it  necessary  to  skirt  these 
thickets,  and  at  that,  sometimes  had  to  cut  our  way 
through  with  our  Httle  axes.  Hunting  was  scarcely  pos- 
sible under  such  conditions.  Still  we  did  not  see  any  deer 
tracks. 

Eventually  we  crossed  this  ridge,  or  at  least  the 
jungle  part  of  it,  and  got  lower  down  into  hollows 
and  swales  full  of  aspens.  Copple  recognized  country 
he  had  hunted  before.  We  made  our  way  up  a  long 
shallow  hollow  that  ended  in  an  open  where  lay  the 
remains  of  an  old  log  cabin,  and  corrals.  From  under 
a  bluff  bubbled  a  clear  beautiful  spring.  Copple  looked 
all  around  slowly,  with  strange  expression,  and  at  last, 
dismounting  he  knelt  to  drink  of  the  spring. 

"Ah-h-good!"  he  exclaimed,  after  a  deep  draught. 
' '  Get  down  an '  drink.    Snow  water  an '  it  never  goes  dry. ' ' 

Indeed  it  was  so  cold  it  made  my  teeth  ache,  and  so 
pure  and  sweet  that  I  drank  until  I  could  hold  no  more. 
Deer  and  cat  and  bear  tracks  showed  along  the  margin 
of  clean  sand.  Lower  down  were  fresh  turkey  tracks. 
A  lonely  spring  in  the  woods  visited  by  wild  game !  This 
place  was  singularly  picturesque  and  beautiful.  The 
purest  drinking  water  is  found  in  wdld  forest  or  on  moun- 
tains. Men,  cities,  civilization  contaminate  waters  that 
are  not  isolated. 

Copple  told  me  a  man  named  Mitchell  had  lived  in 
that  lonely  place  thirty  years  ago.  Copple,  as  a  boy, 
had  worked  for  him — had  ridden  wild  bronchos  and 
roped  wild  steers  in  that  open,  many  and  many  a  day. 
Something  of  unconscious  pathos  showed  in  Copple's 
eyes  as  he  gazed  around,  and  in  his  voice.  We  all  hear 
the  echoing  footsteps  of  the  past  years!  In  those  days 
Copple  said  the  ranch  was  overrun  by  wild  game,  and 
wild  horses  too. 


TONTO  BASIN  347 

We  rode  on  westward,  to  come  out  at  length  on  the 
rim  of  a  magnificent  canyon.  It  was  the  widest  and 
deepest  and  wildest  gorge  I  had  come  across  in  this 
country.  So  deep  that  only  a  faint  roar  of  running  water 
reached  our  ears!  The  slopes  were  too  steep  for  man, 
let  alone  a  horse;  and  the  huge  cliffs  and  giant  spruces 
gave  it  a  singularly  rugged  appearance.  We  saw  deer  on 
the  opposite  slope.  Copple  led  along  the  edge,  searching 
for  traces  of  an  old  trail  where  Mitchell  used  to  drive 
cattle  across.  We  did  not  find  a  trail,  but  we  found  a 
place  where  Copple  said  one  used  to  be.  I  could  see  no 
signs  of  it.  Here  leading  his  horse  with  one  hand  and 
wielding  his  little  axe  with  the  other  Copple  started  down. 
For  my  part  I  found  going  down  remarkably  easy.  The 
only  trouble  I  had  was  to  hold  on,  so  I  would  not  go  down 
like  a  flash.  Stockings,  my  horse,  had  in  a  few  weeks 
become  a  splendid  traveler  in  the  forest.  He  had  learned 
to  restrain  his  spirit  and  use  his  intelligence.  Where- 
ever  I  led  he  would  go  and  that  without  any  fear.  There 
is  something  fine  in  constant  association  with  an  intelli- 
gent horse  under  such  circumstances.  In  bad  places 
Stockings  braced  his  forefeet,  sat  on  his  haunches,  and 
slid,  sometimes  making  me  jum.p  to  get  out  of  his  way. 
We  found  the  canyon  bed  a  narrow  notch,  darkly  rich 
and  green,  full  of  the  melody  of  wild  birds  and  mur- 
muring brook,  with  huge  rocks  all  stained  gold  and  russet, 
and  grass  as  high  as  our  knees.  Frost  still  lingered  in 
the  dark,  cool,  shady  retreat;  and  where  the  sun  struck 
a  narrow  strip  of  the  gorge  there  was  warm,  sweet,  dry 
breath  of  the  forest.  But  for  the  most  part,  down  here 
all  was  damp,  dank,  cool  shadow  where  sunshine  never 
reached,  and  where  the  smells  were  of  dead  leaves  and 
wet  moss  and  ferns  and  black  rich  earth. 

Impossible  we  found  it  to  ascend  the  other  slope  where 
we  had  seen  the  deer,  so  we  had  to  ride  up  the  canyon. 


348  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

a  matter  greatly  to  my  liking.  Copple  thought  I  was 
hunting  with  him,  but  really,  except  to  follow  him,  I  did 
not  think  of  the  meaning  of  his  slow  wary  advance. 
Only  a  few  more  days  had  I  to  roam  the  pine-scented 
forest.  That  ride  up  this  deep  gorge  was  rich  in  sensa- 
tion. Sun  and  sky  and  breeze  and  forest  encompassed 
m.e.  The  wilderness  was  all  about  me;  and  I  regretted 
when  the  canyon  lost  its  splendid  ruggedness,  and  became 
like  the  others  I  had  traversed,  and  at  last  grew  to  be  a 
shallow  grassy  ravine,  with  patches  of  gray  aspens  along 
the  tiny  brook. 

As  we  climbed  out  once  more,  this  time  into  an  open, 
beautiful  pine  forest,  with  little  patches  of  green  thicket, 
I  seemed  to  have  been  drugged  by  the  fragrance  and  the 
color  and  the  beauty  of  the  wild.  For  when  Copple 
called  low  and  sharp:  "Hist!"  I  stared  uncompre- 
hendingly  at  him. 

"Deer!"  he  whispered,  pointing.  "Get  off  an'  smoke 
'em  up!" 

Something  shot  through  me — a  different  kind  of  thrill. 
Ahead  in  the  open  I  saw  gray,  graceful,  wild  forms  trotting 
away.  Like  a  flash  I  slid  off  my  horse  and  jerked  out 
my  rifle.  I  ran  forward  a  few  steps.  The  deer  had 
halted — were  gazing  at  us  with  heads  up  and  ears  high. 
What  a  wild  beautiful  picture !  As  I  raised  my  rifle  they 
seemed  to  move  and  vanish  in  the  green.  The  hunter 
in  me,  roused  at  last,  anathematized  my  miserable  luck. 
I  ran  ahead  another  few  steps,  to  be  halted  by  Copple. 
• '  Buck ! "  he  called,  sharply.  ' '  Hurry ! "  Then,  farther 
on  in  the  open,  out  in  the  sunlight,  I  saw  a  noble  stag, 
moving,  trotting  toward  us.  Keen,  hard,  fierce  in  my 
intensity,  I  aligned  the  sights  upon  his  breast  and  fired. 
Straight  forward  and  high  he  bounded,  to  fall  with  a 
heavy  thud. 

Copple's  horse,  startled  by  my  shot,  began  to  snort 


TONTO  BASIN  349 

and  plunge.  "Good  shot,"  yelled  Copple.  "He's  our 
meat." 

What  possessed  me  I  knew  not,  but  I  ran  ahead  of 
Copple.  My  eyes  searched  avidly  the  bush-dotted 
ground  for  my  quarry.  The  rifle  felt  hot  in  my  tight 
grip.  All  inside  me  was  a  tumult — eager,  keen,  wild 
excitement.  The  great  pines,  the  green  aisles  leading 
away  into  the  woods,  the  shadows  under  the  thickets, 
the  pine-pitch  tang  of  the  air,  the  loneliness  of  that  lonely 
forest — all  these  seemed  familiar,  sweet,  beautiful, 
things  mine  alone,  things  seen  and  smelled  and  felt  be- 
fore, things.  .  .  Then  suddenly  I  ran  right  upon  my 
deer,  lying  motionless,  dead  I  thought.  He  appeared 
fairly  large,  with  three-point  antlers.  I  heard  Copple's 
horse  thudding  the  soft  earth  behind  me,  and  I  yelled: 
"I  got  him,  Ben,"     That  was  a  moment  of  exultation. 

It  ended  suddenly.  Something  halted  me.  My  buck, 
now  scarcely  fifteen  feet  from  me,  began  to  shake  and 
struggle.  He  raised  his  head,  uttering  a  choking  gasp. 
I  heard  the  flutter  of  blood  in  his  throat.  He  raised 
himself  on  his  front  feet  and  lifted  his  head  high,  higher, 
until  his  nose  pointed  skyward  and  his  antlers  lay  back 
upon  his'  shoulders.  Then  a  strong  convulsion  shook 
him.  I  heard  the  shuddering  wrestle  of  his  whole  body. 
I  heard  the  gurgle  and  flow  of  blood.  Saw  the  smoke  of 
fresh  blood  and  smelled  it !  I  saw  a  small  red  spot  in  his 
gray  breast  where  my  bullet  had  struck.  I  saw  a  great 
bloody  gaping  hole  on  his  rump  where  the  .30  Gov't 
expanding  bullet  had  come  out.  From  end  to  end  that 
bullet  had  torn!  Yet  he  was  not  dead.  Straining  to 
rise  again ! 

I  saw,  felt  all  this  in  one  flashing  instant.  And  as 
swiftly  my  spirit  changed.  What  I  might  have  done  I 
never  knew,  but  most  likely  I  would  have  shot  him 
through  the  brain.     Only  a  sudden  action  of  the  stag 


3SO  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

paralyzed  all  my  force.  He  lowered  his  head.  He  saw 
me.  And  dying,  with  lungs  and  heart  and  bowels  shot 
to  shreds,  he  edged  his  stiff  front  feet  toward  me,  he 
dragged  his  afterquartcrs,  he  slid,  he  flopped,  he  skit- 
tered convulsively  at  me.  No  fear  in  the  black,  dis- 
tended, wild  eyes! 

Only  hate,  only  terrible,  wild,  unquenchable  spirit  to 
live  long  enough  to  kill  me !  I  saw  it.  He  meant  to  kill 
rae.  How  magnificent,  how  horrible  this  wild  courage! 
My  eyes  seemed  riveted  upon  him,  as  he  came  closer, 
closer.  He  gasped.  Blood  sputtered  from  his  throat. 
But  more  terrible  than  agony,  than  imminent  death  v.-as 
the  spirit  of  this  wild  beast  to  slay  its  enemy.  Inch  by 
inch  he  skidded  closer  to  me,  with  a  convulsive  quivering 
awful  to  see.  No  veil  of  the  past,  no  scale  of  civilization 
between  beast  and  man  then!  Enemies  as  old  as  the 
earth !  I  had  shot  him  to  eat,  and  he  would  kill  me  before 
he  died.  For  me  the  moment  was  monstrous.  No 
hunter  was  I  then,  but  a  man  stricken  by  the  spirit  and 
myster>'-  of  life,  by  the  agony  and  terror  of  death,  by  the 
awful  strange  sense  that  this  stag  would  kill  me. 

But  Copple  galloped  up,  and  drawing  his  revolver,  he 
shot  the  deer  through  the  head.     It  fell  in  a  heap. 

"Don't  ever  go  close  to  a  crippled  deer,"  admonished 
my  comrade,  as  he  leaped  off  his  horse.  ' '  I  saw  a  fellow 
once  that  was  near  killed  by  a  buck  he'd  talcen  for  dead. 
.  .  .  Strange  the  way  this  buck  half  stood  up.  Reckon 
he  meant  bad,  but  he  was  all  in.  You  hit  him  plumb 
center." 

"Yes.  Ben,  it  was — strange,"  I  replied,  soberly.  I 
caught  Copple's  keen  dark  glance  studying  me.  "\Mien 
you  open  him  up — see  what  my  bullet  did,  will  you?" 

"All  right.  Help  me  hang  him  to  a  snag  here,"  re- 
turned Copple,  as  he  untied  his  lasso. 

Wlien  we  got  the  deer  strung  up  I  went  off  into  the 


TONTO  BASIN  351 

woods,  and  sat  on  a  log,  and  contended  with  a  queer  sort 
of  sickness  until  it  passed  avray.  But  it  left  a  state  of 
mind  that  I  knew  would  require  me  to  probe  into  myself, 
and  try  to  understand  once  and  for  all  time  this  blood- 
thirsty tendency  of  man  to  kill.  It  would  force  me  to 
try  to  analyze  the  psychology  of  hunting.  Upon  my 
return  to  Copple  I  found  he  had  the  buck  ready  to  load 
upon  his  horse.  His  hands  were  bright  red.  He  was 
wiping  his  hunting-knife  on  a  bunch  of  green  pine  needles. 

"That  150-grain  soft-nose  bullet  is  some  executioner," 
he  declared,  forcefully,  "Your  bullet  mushroomed  just 
after  it  went  into  his  breast.  It  tore  his  lung  to  pieces, 
cut  open  his  heart,  made  a  mess  of  kidneys  an'  paunch, 
an'  broke  his  spine.  .  .  .  An'  look  at  this  hole  where 
it  came  out!" 

I  helped  Copple  heave  the  load  on  his  saddle  and  tie  it 
securely,  and  I  got  my  hands  red  at  the  job,  but  I  did  not 
really  look  at  the  buck  again.  And  upon  our  way  back 
to  camp  I  rode  in  the  lead  all  the  way.  We  reached  camp 
before  sunset,  where  I  had  to  endure  the  felicitations  of 
R.  C.  and  my  comrades,  all  of  whom  were  delighted  that 
at  last  I  had  gotten  a  buck.  Takahashi  smiled  all  over 
his  broad  brown  face.  "My  goodnish!  I  awful  glad! 
Nice  fat  deer!" 

That  night  I  lay  awake  a  long  time,  and  though  aware 
of  the  moan  of  the  wind  in  the  pines  and  the  tinkle  of  the 
brook,  and  the  melancholy  hoot  of  an  owl,  and  later  the 
still,  sad,  black  silence  of  the  midnight  hours,  I  really 
had  no  pleasure  in  them.     My  mind  was  active. 

Boys  are  inherently  cruel.  The  games  they  Dlay,  at 
least  those  they  invent,  instinctively  partake  of  some 
element  of  brute  nature.  They  chase,  they  capture, 
they  imprison,  they  torture,  and  they  kill.  No  secret 
rendezvous  of  a  boy's  pirate  gang  ever  failed  to  be  soaked 
with  imaginary''  blood!     And  what  group  of  boys  have 


352  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

not  played  at  being  pirates?  The  Indian  games  are 
worse — scalping,  with  red-hot  cinders  thrown  upon  the 
bleeding  head,  and  the  terrible  running  of  the  gauntlet, 
and  burning  at  the  stake. 

What  youngster  has  not  made  wooden  knives  to  spill 
the  blood  of  his  pretended  enemies?  Little  girls  play 
with  dolls,  and  with  toy  houses,  and  all  the  implements 
of  making  a  home ;  but  sweet  and  dear  as  the  little  angels 
are  they  love  a  boy's  game,  and  if  they  can  through  some 
lucky  accident  participate  in  one  it  is  to  scream  and 
shudder  and  fight,  indeed  like  the  females  of  the  species. 
No  break  here  between  these  little  mothers  of  doll-babies 
and  the  bloody  mothers  of  the  French  Revolution,  or  of 
dusky,  naked,  barbarian  children  of  a  primitive  day ! 

Boys  love  the  chase.  And  that  chase  depends  upon 
environment.  For  want  of  wild  game  they  will  harry  a 
poor  miserable  tom-cat  with  sticks  and  stones.  I  be- 
longed once  to  a  gang  of  young  ruffians  who  chased  the 
neighbor's  chickens,  killed  them  w4th  clubs,  and  cooked 
them  in  tin  cans,  over  a  hidden  fire.  Boys  love  nothing 
so  much  as  to  chase  a  squirrel  or  a  frightened  little  chip- 
munk back  and  forth  along  a  rail  fence.  They  brandish 
their  sticks,  run  and  yell,  dart  to  and  fro,  lLl<:e  young 
Indians.  They  rob  bird's  nests,  steal  the  eggs,  pierce 
them  and  blow  them.  They  capture  the  young  birds, 
and  are  not  above  killing  the  parents  that  fly  frantically 
to  the  rescue.  I  knew  of  boys  who  ground  captured  birds 
to  death  on  a  grindstone.  Who  has  not  seen  a  boy  fling 
stones  at  a  helpless  hop-toad  ? 

As  boys  grow  older  to  the  age  of  reading  they  select, 
or  at  least  love  best,  those  stories  of  bloodshed  and  vio- 
lence. Stevenson  wrote  that  boys  read  for  some  element 
of  the  brute  instinct  in  them.  His  two  wonderful  books 
Treasure  Island  and  Kidnapped  are  full  of  fight  and 
the  killing  of  men.     Robinson  Crusoe  is  the  only  great 


TONTO  BASIN  353 

boy's  book  I  ever  read  that  did  not  owe  its  charm  to 
fighting.  But  still  did  not  old  Crusoe  fight  to  live  on 
his  lonely  island?  And  this  wonderful  tale  is  full  of 
hunting,  and  has  at  the  end  the  battle  with  cannibals. 

When  lads  grow  up  they  become  hunters,  almost  with- 
out exception,  at  least  in  spirit  if  not  in  deed.  Early 
days  and  environment  decide  whether  or  not  a  man  be- 
comes a  hunter.  In  all  my  life  I  have  met  only  two 
grown  men  who  did  not  care  to  go  prowling  and  hunting 
in  the  woods  with  a  gun.  An  exception  proves  a  great 
deal,  but  all  the  same  most  men,  whether  they  have  a 
chance  or  not,  love  to  hunt.  Hunters,  therefore,  there 
are  of  many  degrees.  Hunters  of  the  lowly  cotton-tail 
and  the  woodland  squirrel;  hunters  of  quaU,  woodcock, 
and  grouse;  hunters  of  wild  ducks  and  geese;  hunters  of 
foxes— the  red-coated  English  and  the  homespun  clad 
American ;  hunters — which  is  a  kinder  name  for  trappers 
— of  beaver,  marten,  otter,  mink,  all  the  furred  animals; 
hunters  of  deer,  cat,  wolf,  bear,  antelope,  elk,  moose, 
caribou ;  hunters  of  the  barren  lands  where  the  ice  is  king 
and  where  there  are  polar  bears,  white  foxes,  musk-ox, 
walrus.  Hunters  of  different  animals  of  different  coun- 
tries. African  hunters  for  lion,  rhinoceros,  elephant, 
buffalo,  eland,  hartebeest,  giraffe,  and  a  hundred  species 
made  known  to  all  the  world  by  such  classical  sportsmen 
as  Selous,  Roosevelt,  Stewart  Edward  White. 

But  they  are  all  hunters  and  their  game  is  the  deadly 
chase  in  the  open  or  the  wild.  There  are  hunters  who 
hate  action,  who  hate  to  walk  and  climb  and  toil  and 
wear  themselves  out  to  get  a  shot.  Such  men  are  hunters 
still,  but  still  not  men!  There  are  hunters  who  have 
game  driven  up  to  them.  I  heard  a  story  told  by  an 
officer  whom  I  believe.  In  the  early  days  of  the  war  he 
found  himself  somewhere  on  the  border  between  Austria 
and  Germany.     He  was  invited  to  a  hunt  by  personages 


354  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

of  high  degree.  They  motored  to  a  sequestered  palace 
in  the  forest,  and  next  day  motored  to  a  shooting-lodge. 
At  daylight  he  was  called,  and  taken  to  the  edge  of  a 
forest  and  stationed  in  an  open  glade.  His  stand  was  an 
upholstered  divan  placed  high  in  the  forks  of  a  tree. 
His  guide  told  him  that  pretty  soon  a  doe  would  come  out 
of  the  forest.  But  he  was  not  to  shoot  it.  In  fifteen 
minutes  a  lame  buck  would  come  out.  But  he  was  not 
to  shoot  that  one  either.  In  ten  more  minutes  another 
buck  would  come  out,  and  this  third  deer  he  was  to  kill. 
My  informant  told  me  this  was  all  very  seriously  meant. 
The  gun  given  him  was  large  enough  in  calibre  to  kill  an 
elephant.  He  walked  up  the  steps  to  the  comfortable 
divan  and  settled  himself  to  await  events.  The  doe 
trotted  out  exactly  on  schedule  time.  So  did  the  lame 
buck.  They  came  from  the  woods  and  were  not  fright- 
ened. The  third  deer,  a  large  buck,  was  a  few  moments 
late — three  minutes  to  be  exact.  According  to  instruc- 
tions the  American  killed  this  buck — a  matter  that  took 
some  nerve  he  said,  for  the  buck  walked  out  like  a  cow. 
That  night  a  big  supper  was  given  in  the  guest's  honor. 
He  had  to  eat  certain  parts  of  the  buck  he  had  killed,  and 
drink  flagons  of  wine.  This  kind  of  hunting  must  be 
peculiarly  German  or  Austrian,  and  illustrates  the  pe- 
culiar hunting  ways  of  men. 

A  celebrated  bear  hunter  and  guide  of  the  northwest 
told  me  that  for  twenty  years  he  had  been  taking  eastern 
ministers — preachers  of  the  gospel — on  hunting  trips  into 
the  wild.  He  assured  me  that  of  all  the  bloody  murder- 
ers— waders  in  gore,  as  he  expressed  it — these  teachers  of 
the  gospel  were  the  worst.  The  moment  they  got  out 
into  the  wild  they  wanted  to  kill,  kill,  kill.  He  averred 
their  natures  seemed  utterly  to  change. 

In  reading  the  books  of  hunters  and  in  listening  to  their 
talks  at  Camp-fire  Club  dinners  I  have  always  been  struck 


TONTO  BASIN  355 

with  the  expression  of  what  these  hunters  felt,  what  they 
thought  they  got  out  of  hunting.  The  change  from  city 
to  the  open  wilderness;  the  difference  between  noise, 
tumult,  dirt,  foul  air,  and  the  silence,  the  quiet,  the  clean- 
ness and  purity;  the  sweet  breath  of  God's  country  as 
so  many  called  it;  the  beauty  of  forest  and  mountain; 
the  wildness  of  ridge  and  valley;  the  wonder  of  wild 
animals  in  their  native  haunts ;  and  the  zest,  the  joy,  the 
excitement,  the  magnificent  thrill  of  the  stalk  and  the 
chase.  No  one  of  them  ever  dwelt  upon  the  kill!  It 
was  mentioned,  as  a  result,  an  end,  a  consummation. 
How  strange  that  hunters  believed  these  were  the  at- 
tractions of  the  chase!  They  felt  them,  to  be  sure,  in 
some  degree,  or  they  would  not  remember  them.  But 
they  never  realized  that  these  sensations  were  only  inci- 
dental to  hunting. 

Men  take  long  rides,  hundreds  and  thousands  of  miles, 
to  hunt.  They  endure  hardships,  live  in  camps  with 
absolute  joy.  They  stalk  through  the  forest,  climb  the 
craggy  peaks,  labor  as  giants  in  the  building  of  the 
pyramids,  all  with  a  tight  clutch  on  a  deadly  rifle.  They 
are  keen,  intent,  strained,  quiveringly  eager  all  with  a 
tight  clutch  on  a  deadly  rifle.  If  hunters  think  while  on 
a  stalk — which  matter  I  doubt  considerably — they  think 
about  the  lay  of  the  land,  or  the  aspect  of  it,  of  the  habits 
and  possibilities  of  their  quarry,  of  their  labor  and 
chances,  and  particularly  of  the  vague  unrealized  sense 
of  comfort,  pleasure,  satisfaction  in  the  moment.  Tight 
muscles,  alert  eyes,  stealthy  steps,  stalk  and  run  and 
crawl  and  climb,  breathlessness,  a  hot  close-pressed  chest, 
thrill  on  thrill,  and  sheer  bursting  riot  of  nerve  and  vein 
— these  are  the  ordinary  sensations  and  actions  of  a 
hunter.  No  ascent  too  lofty — no  descent  too  perilous 
for  him  then,  if  he  is  a  man  as  well  as  a  hunter! 

Take  the  Brazilian  hunter  of  the  jungle.     He  is  soli- 


3s6  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

tary.  He  is  sufficient  to  himself.  He  is  a  survival  of  the 
fittest.  The  number  of  his  tribe  are  few.  Nature  sees 
to  that.  But  he  must  eat,  and  therefore  he  hunts.  He 
spears  fish  and  he  kills  birds  and  beasts  with  a  blow-gun. 
He  hunts  to  live.  But  the  manner  of  his  action,  though 
more  skilful,  is  the  same  as  any  hunter's.  Likewise  his 
sensations,  perhaps  more  vivid  because  hunting  for  him 
is  a  matter  of  life  or  death.  Take  the  Gaucho  of  Pata- 
gonia— the  silent  lonely  Indian  hunter  of  the  Pampas. 
He  hunts  with  a  bola,  sl  thin  thong  or  string  at  each  end 
of  which  is  a  heavy  leather-covered  ball  of  stone  or  iron. 
This  the  Gaucho  hurls  through  the  air  at  the  neck  or  legs 
of  his  quarry.  The  balls  fly  round — the  thong  binds 
tight — it  is  a  deadly  weapon.  The  user  of  it  rides  and 
stalks  and  sees  and  throws  and  feels  the  same  as  any 
other  hunter.  Time  and  place,  weapon  and  gam.e  have 
little  to  do  with  any  differences  in  hunters. 

Up  to  this  1919  hunting  trip  in  the  wilds  I  had  always 
marveled  at  the  fact  that  naturalists  and  biologists  hate 
sportsmen.  Not  hunters  like  the  Yellow  Knife  Lidians, 
or  the  snake-eating  Bushmen  of  Australia,  or  the  Terra- 
del-Fuegians,  or  even  the  native  country  rabbit -hunters — 
but  the  so-called  sportsmen.  Naturalists  and  biologists 
have  simply  learned  the  truth  why  men  hunt,  and  that 
when  it  is  done  in  the  name  of  sport,  or  for  sensation,  it 
is  a  degenerate  business.  Stevenson  wrote  beautiful 
words  about  "the  hunter  home  from  the  hill,"  but  so  far 
as  I  can  find  out  he  never  killed  anything  himself.  He 
was  concerned  with  the  romance  of  the  thought,  with 
alliteration,  and  the  singular  charm  of  the  truth — sunset 
and  the  end  of  the  day,  the  hunter's  plod  down  the  hill 
to  the  cottage,  to  the  home  where  wife  and  children 
awaited  him.  Indeed  it  is  a  beautiful  truth,  ana  not 
altogether  in  the  past,  for  there  are  still  farmers  and 
pioneers. 


TONTO  BASIN  357 

Hunting  is  a  savage  primordial  instinct  inherited  from 
our  ancestors.  It  goes  back  through  all  the  ages  of  man, 
and  farther  still — to  the  age  when  man  was  not  man,  but 
hairy  ape,  or  some  other  beast  from  which  we  are  de- 
scended. To  kill  is  in  the  very  marrow  of  our  bones. 
If  man  after  he  developed  into  human  state  had  taken  to 
vegetable  diet — which  he  never  did  take — he  yet  would 
have  inherited  the  flesh-eating  instincts  of  his  animal 
forebears.  And  no  instinct  is  ever  wholly  eradicated. 
But  man  was  a  meat  eater.  By  brute  strength,  by 
sagacity,  by  endurance  he  killed  in  order  to  get  the  means 
of  subsistence.  If  he  did  not  kill  he  starved.  And  it  is 
a  matter  of  record,  even  down  to  modern  times,  that  man 
has  existed  by  cannibalism. 

The  cave-man  stalked  from  his  hole  under  a  cliff, 
boldly  forth  with  his  huge  club  or  stone  mace.  Perhaps 
h^  stole'  his  neighbor's  woman,  but  if  so  he  had  more 
reason  to  hunt  than  before — he  had  to  feed  her  as  well  as 
himself.  This  cave-man,  savagely  descended,  savagely 
surrounded,' must  have  had  to  hunt  all  the  daylight  hours 
and  surely  had  to  fight  to  kill  his  food,  or  to  keep  it  after 
he  killed  it.  Long,  long  ages  was  the  being  called  cave- 
man in  developing;  more  long  ages  he  lived  on  the  earth, 
in'  that  dim  dark  mystic  past;  and  just  as  long  were  his 
descendants  growing  into'  another  and  higher  type  of 
barbarian.  But  they  and  their  children  and  grand- 
children, and  all  their  successive,  innumerable,  and  vary- 
ing descendants  had  to  hunt  meat  and  eat  meat  to  live. 

The  brain  of  barbarian  man  was  small,  as  shown  by 
the  size  and  shape  of  his  skull,  but  there  is  no  reason  to 
believe  its  construction  and  use  were  any  different  from 
the  use  of  other  organs — the  eye  to  see  with — the  ear  to 
hear*  with — the  palate  to  taste  with.  Whatever  the 
brain  of  primitive  man  was  it  held  at  birth  unlimited  and 
innumerable  instincts  like  those  of  its  progenitors;  and 

24 


3S8  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

round  and  smooth  in  babyhood,  as  it  was,  it  surely 
gathered  its  sensations,  one  after  another  in  separate 
and  habitual  channels,  untU  when  manhood  arrived  it  had 
its  convolutions,  its  folds  and  wrinkles.  And  if  instinct 
and  tendency  were  born  in  the  brain  how  truly  must  they 
be  a  part  of  bone,  tissue,  blood. 

We  cannot  escape  our  inheritance.  Civilization  is 
merely  a  veneer,  a  thin-skinned  polish  over  the  savage 
and  crude  nature.  Fear,  anger,  lust,  the  three  great 
primal  instincts  are  restrained,  but  they  live  powerfully 
in  the  breast  of  man.  Self  preservation  is  the  first  law 
of  human  life,  and  is  included  in  fear.  Fear  of  death  is 
the  first  instinct.  Then  if  for  thousands,  perhaps  mil- 
lions of  years,  man  had  to  hunt  because  of  his  fear  of 
death,  had  to  kill  meat  to  survive — consider  the  ineradi- 
cable and  permanent  nature  of  the  instinct. 

The  secret  now  of  the  instinctive  joy  and  thrill  and 
v.'ildness  of  the  chase  lies  clear. 

Stealing  through  the  forest  or  along  the  mountain 
slope,  eyes  roving,  ears  sensitive  to  all  vibrations  of  the 
air,  nose  as  keen  as  that  of  a  hound,  hands  tight  on  a 
deadly  rifle,  we  unconsciously  go  back.  We  go  back  to 
the  primitive,  to  the  savage  state  of  man.  Therein  lies 
the  joy.  How  sweet,  vague,  unreal  those  sensations  of 
strange  familiarity  with  wild  places  we  know  we  never 
saw  before !  But  a  million  years  before  that  hour  a  hairy 
ancestor  of  ours  felt  the  same  way  in  the  same  kind  of  a 
place,  and  in  us  that  instinct  survives.  That  is  the  secret 
of  the  wonderful  strange  charm  of  wild  places,  of  the 
barren  rocks  of  the  desert  wilderness,  of  the  great-walled 
lonely  canyons.  Something  now  in  our  blood,  in  our 
bones  once  danced  in  men  who  lived  then  in  similar 
places.     And  lived  by  hunting! 

The  child  is  father  to  the  man.  In  the  light  of  this 
instinct  how  easy  to  understand  his  boyish  cruelty.     He 


TONTO  BASIN  359 

is  true  to  nature.  Unlimited  and  infinite  in  his  imagina- 
tion when  he  hunts — whether  with  his  toys  or  with  real 
weapons.  If  he  flings  a  stone  and  kills  a  toad  he  is 
instinctively  killiiig  meat  for  his  home  in  the  cave.  How 
little  difference  between  the  lad  and  the  man!  For  a 
man  the  most  poignantly  exciting,  the  most  thrillingly 
wild  is  the  chase  when  he  is  weaponless,  when  he  runs 
and  kills  his  quarry  with  a  club.  Here  we  have  the 
essence  of  the  matter.  The  hunter  is  proudest  of  his 
achievement  in  which  he  has  not  had  the  help  of  deadly 
weapons.  Unconsciously  he  will  brag  and  glow  over 
that  conquest  wherein  lay  greatest  peril  to  him — when 
he  had  nothing  but  his  naked  hands.  What  a  hot  gush 
of  blood  bursts  over  him !  He  goes  back  to  his  barbarian 
state  when  a  man  only  felt.  The  savage  lived  in  his 
sensations.  He  saw,  heard,  smelled,  tasted,  touched, 
but  seldom  thought.  The  earthy,  the  elemental  of  eye 
and  ear  and  skin  surrounded  him.  When  the  man  goes 
into  the  wilderness  to  change  into  a  hunter  that  surviving 
kinship  with  the  savage  revives  in  his  being,  and  all 
unconsciously  dominates  him  with  driving  passion. 
Passion  it  is  because  for  long  he  has  been  restrained  in 
the  public  haunts  of  men.  His  real  nature  has  been 
hidden.  The  hunting  of  game  inhibits  his  thoughts. 
He  feels  only.  He  forgets  himself.  He  sees  the  track, 
he  hears  the  stealthy  step,  he  smells  the  wild  scent; 
and  his  blood  dances  with  the  dance  of  the  ages.  Then 
he  is  a  killer.  Then  the  ages  roll  back.  Then  he  is 
brother  to  the  savage.  Then  all  unconsciously  he  lives 
the  chase,  the  fight,  the  death-dealing  moment  as  they 
were  lived  by  all  his  ancestors  down  through  the  misty 
past. 

What  then  should  be  the  attitude  of  a  thoughtful  man 
toward  this  liberation  of  an  instinct — that  is  to  say, 
toward  the  game  or  sport  or  habit  of  hunting  to  kill? 


36o  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

Not  easily  could  I  decide  this  for  myself.  After  all 
life  is  a  battle.  Eternally  we  are  compelled  to  fight.  If 
we  do  not  fight,  if  we  do  not  keep  our  bodies  strong, 
supple,  healthy,  soon  we  succumb  to  some  germ  or  other 
that  gets  a  hold  in  our  blood  or  lungs  and  fights  for  its 
life,  its  species,  until  it  kills  us.  Fight  therefore  is  abso- 
lutely necessary  to  long  life,  and  Alas!  eventually  that 
fight  must  be  lost.  The  savages,  the  Babylonians,  the 
Persians,  the  Greeks  all  worshipped  physical  prowess  in 
man.  Manhood,  strength — the  symbols  of  fight!  To 
be  physically  strong  and  well  a  man  must  work  hard, 
with  frequent  intervals  of  change  of  exercise,  and  he  must 
eat  meat.  I  am  not  a  great  meat  eater,  but  I  doubt  if 
I  could  do  much  physical  labor  or  any  brain  work  on  a 
vegetable  diet.  Therefore  I  hold  it  fair  and  manly  to 
go  once  a  year  to  the  wilderness  to  hunt.  Let  that  hunt 
be  clean  hard  toil,  as  hard  as  I  can  stand!  Perhaps 
nature  created  the  lower  animals  for  the  use  of  man.  If 
I  had  been  the  creator  I  think  I  would  have  made  it 
possible  for  the  so-called  higher  animal  man  to  live  on 
air. 

Somewhere  I  read  a  strange  remarkable  story  about 
monkeys  and  priests  in  the  jungle  of  India.  An  old  order 
of  priests  had  from  time  out  of  mind  sent  two  of  their 
comrades  into  the  jungle  to  live  with  the  monkeys,  to 
tame  them,  feed  them,  study  them,  love  them.  And 
these  priests  told  an  incredible  story,  yet  one  that  haunted 
with  its  possibilities  of  truth.  After  a  long  term  of  years 
in  which  one  certain  priest  had  lived  with  the  monkeys 
and  they  had  learned  truly  he  meant  them  no  harm  and 
only  loved  them,  at  rare  moments  an  old  monkey  would 
come  to  him  and  weep  and  weep  in  the  most  terrible  and 
tragic  manner.  This  monkey  wanted  to  tell  something, 
but  could  not  speak.  But  the  priest  knew  that  the 
monkey  was  trying  to  tell  him  how  once  the  monkey 


TONTO  BASIN  361 

people  had  been  human  Hke  him.  Only  they  had  retro- 
graded in  the  strange  scale  of  evolution.  And  the  terrible 
weeping  was  for  loss — loss  of  physical  stature,  of  speech, 
perhaps  of  soul. 

What  a  profound  and  stunning  idea !  Does  evolution 
work  backward?  Could  nature  in  its  relentless  inscru- 
table design  for  the  unattainable  perfection  have  devel- 
oped man  only  to  start  him  backward  toward  the  dim 
ages  whence  he  sprang  ?  Who  knows !  But  every  man 
can  love  wild  animals.  Every  man  can  study  and  try  to 
understand  the  intelligence  of  his  horse,  the  loyalty  of  his 
dog.  And  every  hunter  can  hunt  less  with  his  instinct, 
and  more  with  an  understanding  of  his  needs,  and  a 
consideration  for  the  beasts  only  the  creator  knows. 

X 

The  last  day  of  everything  always  comes.  Time,  lil-ce 
the  tide,  waits  for  no  man.  Anticipation  is  beautiful, 
but  it  is  best  and  happiest  to  enjoy  the  present.  Live 
while  we  may ! 

On  this  last  day  of  my  hunt  we  were  up  almost  before 
it  was  light  enough  to  see.  The  morning  star  shone 
radiant  in  the  dark  gray  sky.  All  the  other  stars  seemed 
dimmed  by  its  glory.  Silent  as  a  grave  was  the  forest. 
!■  started  a  fire,  chopped  wood  so  vigorously  that  I 
awakened  Nielsen  who  came  forth  like  a  burly  cave-man ; 
and  I  washed  hands  and  face  in  the  icy  cold  brook.  By 
'  the  time  breakfast  was  over  the  gold  of  the  rising  sun  was 
tipping  the  highest  pines  on  the  ridges. 

We  started  on  foot,  leaving  the  horses  hobbled  near 
camp.  All  the  hounds  appeared  fit.  Even  Old  Dan 
trotted  along  friskily.  Pyle,  a  neighbor  of  Haught's,  had 
come  to  take  a  hunt  with  us,  bringing  two  dogs  with  him. 
For  this  last  day  I  had  formulated  a  plan.     Edd  and  one 


362  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

of  the  boys  were  to  take  the  hounds  down  on  the  east  side 
of  the  great  ridge  that  made  the  eastern  wall  of  Dude 
Canyon.  R.  C.  was  to  climb  out  on  this  ridge,  and  take 
his  position  at  the  most  advantageous  point.  We  had 
already  chased  half  a  dozen  bears  over  this  saddle,  one 
of  which  was  the  big  frosty-coated  grizzly  that  Edd  and 
Nielsen  had  shot  at.  The  rest  of  us  hurried  to  the  head 
of  Dude  Canyon.  Copple  and  I  were  to  go  down  to  the 
first  promontories  under  the  rim.  The  others  were  to 
await  developments  and  go  where  Haught  thought  best 
to  send  them. 

Copple  and  I  started  down  over  and  around  the  crags, 
going  carefully  until  we  reached  the  open  slope  under  the 
rim-rock.  It  seemed  this  morning  that  I  was  fresh, 
eager,  agile  like  a  goat  on  my  feet.  In  my  consciousness 
of  this  I  boasted  to  Copple  that  I  would  dislodge  fewer 
stones  and  so  mxake  less  noise  than  he.  The  canyon 
sloped  at  an  angle  of  about  forty-five  degrees,  and  we 
slid,  stepped,  jumped  and  ran  down  without  starting  an 
avalanche. 

When  we  descended  to  the  first  bare  cape  of  projecting 
rock  the  hour  was  the  earliest  in  which  I  had  been  down 
under  the  rim.  All  the  canyon  and  the  great  green  gulf 
below  were  unusually  fresh  and  beautiful.  I  heard  the 
lonely  call  of  strange  birds  and  the  low  murmur  of  run- 
ning water.  An  eagle  soared  in  the  sunlight.  High 
above  us  to  the  east  rose  the  magnificent  slope  of  Dude 
Canyon.  I  gazed  up  to  the  black  and  green  and  silver 
ascent,  up  to  the  gold-tipped  craggy  crest  where  R.  C. 
had  his  stand.  I  knew  he  could  see  me,  but  I  could  not 
see  him.  Afterward  he  told  me  that  my  red  cap  shone 
clearly  out  of  green  and  gray,  so  he  had  no  difficulty  in 
keeping  track  of  my  whereabouts.  The  thickets  of 
aspens  and  oaks  seemed,  now  to  stand  on  end.  How  dark 
in  the  shade  and  steely  and  cold  they  looked !     That  giant 


TONTO  BASIN  363 

ridge  still  obstructed  the  sun,  and  all  on  this  side  of  it, 
under  its  frowning  crest  and  slope  was  dark  and  fresh  and 
cool  in  shadow.  The  ravines  were  choked  black  with 
spruce  trees.  Here  along  this  gray  shady  slant  of  wall, 
in  niches  and  cracks,  and  under  ledges,  and  on  benches, 
were  the  beds  of  the  bears.  Even  as  I  gazed  momenta- 
rily I  expected  to  see  a  bear.  It  looked  two  hundred 
yards  across  the  canyon  from  where  we  stood,  but  Copple 
declared  it  was  a  thousand.  On  our  other  side  capes  and 
benches  and  groves  were  bright  in  sunshine,  clear  across 
the  rough  breaks  to  the  west  wall  of  Dude  Canyon.  I 
saw  a  flock  of  wild  pigeons  below.  Way  out  and  beyond 
rolled  the  floor  of  the  basin,  green  and  vast,  like  a  ridged 
sea  of  pines,  to  the  bold  black  Mazatzals  so  hauntingly 
beckoning  from  the  distance.  Copple  spoke  now  and 
then,  but  I  wanted  to  be  silent.  How  wild  and  wonderful 
this  place  in  the  early  morning ! 

But  I  had  not  long  to  meditate  and  revel  in  beauty  and 
wildness.  Far  down  across  the  mouth  of  the  canyon, 
at  the  extreme  southern  end  of  that  vast  oak  thicket,  the 
hounds  gave  tongue.  Old  Dan  first!  In  the  still  cool 
air  how  his  great  wolf -bay  rang  out  the  wildness  of  the 
time  and  place !  Already  Edd  and  Pyle  had  rounded  the 
end  of  the  east  ridge  and  were  coming  up  along  the  slope 
of  Dude  Canyon. 

"Hounds  workin'  round,"  declared  Copple.  "Now 
I'll  tell  you  what.  Last  night  a  bear  was  feedin'  along 
that  end  of  the  thicket.  The  hounds  are  millin'  round 
try  in'  to  straighten  out  his  trail.  .  .  It's  a  dead  cinch 
they'll  jump  a  bear  an'  we'll  see  him." 

"Look  ever3rwhere ! "  I  cautioned  Copple,  and  my  eyes 
roved  and  strained  over  all  that  vast  slope.  Suddenly 
I  espied  the  flash  of  something  black,  far  down  the 
thicket,  and  tried  to  show  it  to  my  comrade. 

"Let's  go  around  an'  down  to  that  lower  point  of  rock. 


364  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

It's  a  better  stand  than  this.  Closer  to  the  thicket  an' 
commands  those.  .  .  .  By  Golly,  1  see  what  you  see! 
That's  a  bear,  slippin'  down.     Stay  with  me  now!" 

Staying  with  Copple  was  a  matter  of  utter  disregard  of 
clothes,  limbs,  life.  He  plunged  off  that  bare  ledge,  slid 
flat  on  his  back,  and  wormed  feet  first  under  manzanita, 
and  gaining  open  slope  got  up  to  run  and  jump  into 
another  thicket.  By  staying  with  him  I  saw  that  I  would 
have  a  way  opened  through  the  brush,  and  something  to 
fall  upon  if  I  fell.  He  rimmed  the  edge  of  a  deep  gorge 
that  made  me  dizzy.  He  leaped  cracks.  He  let  himself 
down  over  a  ledge  by  holding  to  bushes.  He  found  steps 
to  descend  little  bluffs,  and  he  flew  across  the  open  slides 
of  weathered  rock.  I  was  afraid  this  short  cut  to  the 
lower  projecting  cape  of  rock  would  end  suddenly  on 
some  impassable  break  or  cliff,  but  though  the  travel 
grew  rough  we  still  kept  on.  I  wore  only  boots,  trousers, 
and  shirt,  and  cap,  with  cartridge  belt  strapped  tight 
around  me.  It  was  a  wonder  I  was  not  stripped.  Some 
of  my  rags  went  to  decorate  the  wake  we  left  down  that 
succession  of  ledges.  But  we  made  it,  with  me  at  least, 
bruised  and  ragged,  dusty  and  choked,  and  absolutely 
breathless.  My  body  burned  as  with  fire.  Hot  sweat 
ran  in  streams  down  my  chest.  At  last  we  reached  the 
bare  flat  projecting  cape  of  rock,  and  indeed  it  afforded 
an  exceedingly  favorable  outlook.  I  had  to  sink  down 
on  the  rock ;  I  could  not  talk  until  I  got  my  breath ;  but 
I  used  my  eyes  to  every  advantage.  Neither  Copple  nor 
I  could  locate  the  black  moving  object  we  had  seen  from 
above.  We  were  much  closer  to  the  hounds,  though  they 
still  were  baying  a  tangled  cross  trail.  Fortunate  it  was 
for  me  that  I  was  given  these  few  moments  to  rest  from 
my  tremendous  exertions. 

My  eyes  searched  the  leaf-covered  slope  so  brown  and 
sear,  and  the  shaggy  thickets,  and  tried  to  pierce  the 


TONTO  BASIN  365 

black  tangle  of  spruce  patches.  All  at  once,  magically 
it  seemed,  my  gaze  held  to  a  dark  shadow,  a  bit  of  dense 
shade,  under  a  large  spruce  tree.  Something  moved. 
Then  a  big  bear  rose  right  out  of  his  bed  of  leaves,  ma- 
jestically as  if  disturbed,  and  turned  his  head  back 
toward  the  direction  of  the  baying  hounds.  Next  he 
walked  out.  He  stopped.  I  was  quivering  with  eager- 
ness to  tell  Copple,  but  I  waited.  Then  the  bear  walked 
behind  a  tree  and  peeped  out,  only  his  head  showing. 
After  a  moment  again  he  walked  out. 

"Ben,  aren't  you  ever  going  to  see  him?"  I  cried  at 
last. 

"What?"  ejaculated  Copple,  in  surprise. 

"Bear!"  and  I  pointed.     "This  side  of  dead  spruce." 

"No!  .  .  .  Reckon  you  see  a  stump  .  .  .  By  Golly! 
I  see  him.  He's  a  dandy.  Reddish  color.  .  .  Doc, 
he's  one  of  them  mean  old  cinnamons." 

"Watch!  What  will  he  do? — Ben,  he  hears  the 
hounds." 

How  singularly  thrilling  to  see  him,  how  slowly  he 
walked,  how  devoid  of  fear,  how  stately! 

"Sure  he  hears  them.  See  him  look  back.  The  son- 
of-a-gun !  I'll  bet  he's  given  us  the  bear-laugh  more  than 
once." 

"Ben,  how  far  away  is  he?"  I  asked. 

"Oh,  that's  eight  hundred  yards,"  declared  Copple. 
"A  long  shot.  Let's  wait.  He  may  work  down  closer. 
But  most  likely  he'll  run  up-hill." 

"If  he  climbs  he'll  go  right  to  R,  C.'s  stand,"  I  said, 
gazing  upward. 

"Sure  will.     There's  no  other  saddle." 

Then  I  decided  that  I  would  not  shoot  at  him  unless 
he  started  down.  My  excitement  was  difficult  to  con- 
trol. I  found  it  impossible  to  attend  to  my  sensations, 
to  think  about  what  I  was  feeling.     But  the  moment  was 


366  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

full  of  suspense.  The  bear  went  into  a  small  clump  of 
spruces  and  stayed  there  a  little  while.  Tantalizing 
moments!  The  hounds  were  hot  upon  his  trail,  still 
working  to  and  fro  in  the  oak  thicket.  I  judged  scarcely 
a  mile  separated  them  from  the  bear.  Again  he  dis- 
appeared behind  a  little  bush.  Remembering  that  five 
pairs  of  sharp  eyes  could  see  me  from  the  points  above 
I  stood  up  and  waved  my  red  cap.  I  waved  it  wildly  as 
a  man  waves  a  red  flag  in  moments  of  danger.  After- 
ward R.  C.  said  he  saw  me  plainly  and  understood  my 
action.  Again  the  bear  had  showed,  this  time  on  an 
open  slide,  where  he  had  halted.  He  was  looking  across 
the  canyon  while  I  waved  my  cap. 

"Ben,  could  he  see  us  so  far?"  I  asked. 

"By  Golly,  I'll  bet  he  does  see  us.  You  get  to  smokin' 
him  up.  An'  if  you  hit  him  don't  be  nervous  if  he  starts 
for  us.  Cinnamons  are  bad  customers.  Lay  out  five 
extra  shells  an'  make  up  your  mind  to  kill  him." 

I  dropped  upon  one  knee.  The  bear  started  down, 
comxing  towards  us  over  an  open  slide.  "Aim  a  little 
coarse  an'  follow  him,"  said  Copple.  I  did  so,  and 
tightening  all  my  muscles  into  a  ball,  holding  my  breath, 
I  fired.  The  bear  gave  a  savage  kick  backwards.  He 
jerked  back  to  bite  at  his  haunch.  A  growl,  low,  angr>', 
vicious  followed  the  echoes  of  my  rifle.  Then  it  seemed 
he  pointed  his  head  toward  us  and  began  to  run  down  the 
slope,  looking  our  way  all  the  time. 

* '  By  Golly ! ' '  yelled  Copple.  * '  You  stung  him  one  an ' 
he's  comin'!  .  .  .  Now  you've  got  to  shoot  some.  Lie 
can  roll  down-hill  an'  run  up-hill  like  a  jack  rabbit.  Take 
your  time — wait  for  open  shots — an'  make  sure!" 

Copple's  advice  brought  home  to  me  what  could  hap- 
pen even  with  the  advantage  on  my  side.  Also  it 
brought  the  cold  tight  prickle  to  my  skin,  the  shudder 
that  was  not  a  thrill,  the  pressure  of  blood  running  too 


TONTO  BASIN  367 

swiftly.  I  did  not  feel  myself  shake,  but  the  rifle  was 
unsteady,  I  rested  an  elbow  on  my  knee,  yet  still  I  had 
difficulty  in  keeping  the  sight  on  him.  I  could  get  it  on 
him,  but  could  not  keep  it  there.  Again  he  came  out 
into  the  open,  at  the  head  of  a  yellow  slide,  that  reached 
to  a  thicket  below.  I  must  not  hurry,  yet  I  had  to 
hurry.  After  all  he  had  not  so  far  to  come  and  most  of 
the  distance  was  under  cover.  Through  m}''  m.ind 
flashed  Haught's  story  of  a  cinnamon  that  kept  coming 
with  ten  bullets  in  him. 

"Doc,  he's  paddin'  along!"  warned  Copple.  "Smoke 
some  of  them  shells!" 

Straining  every  nerve  I  aimed  as  before,  only  a  little 
in  advance,  held  tight  and  pulled  at  the  same  instant. 
The  bear  doubled  up  in  a  ball  and  began  to  roll  down  the 
slide.  He  scattered  the  leaves.  Then  into  the  thicket 
he  crashed,  knocking  the  oaks,  and  cracking  the  brush. 

"Som.e  shot!"  yelled  Copple.     "He's  your  bear!" 

But  my  bear  continued  to  crash  through  the  brush. 
I  shot  again  and  yet  again,  missing  both  times.  Appar- 
ently he  was  coming,  faster  now — and  then  he  showed 
dark  almost  at  the  foot  of  our  slope.  Trees  were  thick 
there.  I  could  not  see  there,  and  I  could  not  look  for 
bear  and  reload  at  the  same  moment.  My  fingers  were 
not  very  nimble. 

"Don't  shoot,"  shouted  Copple.  "He's  your  bear. 
I  never  make  any  mistakes  when  I  see  game  hit." 

"But  I  see  him  coming!" 

"Where?  .  .  .  By  Golly!  that's  another  bear.  He's 
black.  Yours  is  red.  .  .  .  Look  sharp.  Next  time  he 
shows  smoke  him!" 

I  saw  a  flash  of  black  across  an  open  space — I 
heard  a  scattering  of  gravel.  But  I  had  no  chance  to 
shoot.  Then  both  of  us  heard  a  bear  running  in  thick 
leaves. 


368  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

"He's  gone  down  the  canyon,"  said  Copple.  "Now 
look  for  your  bear." 

"Listen  Ben.     The  hounds  are  coming  fast.     There's^ 
Rock.— There's  Sue." 

"I  see  them.  Old  Dan — what  do  you  think  of  that 
old  dog?  .  .  .  There! — your  red  bear's  still  comin'  .  .  . 
He's  bad  hurt." 

Though  Copple  tried  hard  to  show  me  where,  and  I 
strained  my  eyes,  I  could  not  see  the  bear.  I  could  not 
locate  the  threshing  of  brush.  I  knew  it  seemed  close 
enough  for  me  to  be  glad  I  was  not  down  in  that  thicket. 
How  the  hounds  made  the  welkin  ring!  Rock  was  in 
the  lead.  Sue  was  next.  And  Old  Dan  must  have  found 
the  speed  of  his  best  days.  Strange  he  did  not  bay  all 
down  that  slope !  When  Rock  and  Sue  headed  the  bear 
then  I  saw  him.  He  sat  up  on  his  haunches  ready  to 
fight,  but  they  did  not  attack  him.  Instead  they  began 
to  yelp  wildly.  I  dared  not  shoot  again  for  fear  of  hitting 
one  of  them.  Old  Dan  just  beat  the  rest  of  the  pack  to  the 
bear.  Up  pealed  a  yelping  chorus.  I  had  never  heard  Old 
Dan  bay  a  bear  at  close  range.  With  deep,  hoarse,  quick, 
wild  roars  he  dominated  that  medley.  A  box  canyon  took 
up  the  bays,  cracking  them  back  in  echo  from  wall  to  wall. 

From  the  saddle  of  the  great  ridge  above  pealed  down 
R.  C.'s:   "Waahoo!" 

I  saw  him  silhouetted  dark  against  the  sky  line.  He 
waved  and  I  answered.     Then  he  disappeared. 

Nielsen  bellowed  from  the  craggy  cape  above  and  be- 
hind us.  From  down  the  canyon  Edd  sent  up  his  piercing : 
"Ki  Yi!"  Then  Takahashi  appeared  opposite  to  us, 
like  a  goat  on  a  promontory.  How  his :  "Banzai ! "  rang 
above  the  baying  of  the  hounds! 

"We'd  better  hurry  down  an'  across,"  said  Copple. 
"Reckon  the  hounds  will  jump  that  bear  or  some  one  else 
will  get  there  first.     We  got  to  skedaddle!" 


TONTO  BASIN  369 

As  before  we  fell  into  a  manzanita  thicket  and  had  to 
crawl.  Then  we  came  out  upon  the  rim  of  a  box  canyon 
where  the  echoes  made  such  a  din.  It  was  too  steep  to 
descend.  We  had  to  head  it,  and  Copple  took  chances. 
Loose  boulders  tripped  me  and  stout  bushes  saved  me. 
We  knocked  streams  of  rock  and  gravel  down  into  this 
gorge,  sending  up  a  roar  as  of  falling  water.  But  we  got 
around.  A  steep  slope  lay  below,  all  pine  needles  and 
leaves.  From  this  point  I  saw  Edd  on  the  opposite 
slope. 

"I  stopped  one  bear,"  I  yelled.  "Hurry.  Look  out 
for  the  dogs!" 

Then,  imitating  Copple,  I  sat  down  and  slid  as  on  a 
toboggan  for  some  thirty  thrilling  yards.  Some  of  my 
anatomy  and  more  of  my  rags  I  left  behind  me.  But  it 
was  too  exciting  then  to  think  of  hurts.  I  managed  to 
protect  at  least  my  rifle.  Copple  was  charging  into  the 
thicket  below.  I  followed  him  into  the  dark  gorge, 
where  huge  boulders  lay,  and  a  swift  brook  ran,  and 
leaves  two  feet  deep  carpeted  the  shady  canyon  bed. 
It  was  gloomy  down  into  the  lower  part.  I  saw  where 
bear  had  turned  over  the  leaves  making  a  dark  track. 

"The  hounds  have  quit,"  called  Copple  suddenly. 
"I  told  you  he  was  your  bear." 

We  yelled.  Somebody  above  us  answered.  Then  we 
climbed  up  the'  opposite  slope,  through  a  dense  thicket, 
crossing  a  fresh  bear  track,  a  running  track,  and  soon 
came  into  an  open  rocky  slide  where  my  bear  lay  sur- 
rounded by  the,  hounds,  with  Old  Dan  on  guard.  The 
bear  was  red  in  color,  with  silky  fur,  a  long  keen  head, 
and  fine  limbs,  and  of  goodly  size. 

"Cinnamon," I  declared  Copple,  and  turning  him  over 
hei'  pointed  to  a  white  spot  on  his  breast.  ' '  Fine  bear. 
About  four  hundred  pounds.  Maybe  not  so  heavy. 
But  he'll  take  some  packin'  up  to  the  rim!" 


370  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

Then  I  became  aware  of  the  other  men.  Takahashi 
had  arrived  on  the  scene  first,  finding  the  bear  dead. 
Edd  came  next,  and  after  him  Pyle. 

I  sat  down  for  a  much  needed  rest.  Copple  interested 
himself  in  examinirg  the  bear,  finding  that  my  first  shot 
had  hit  him  in  the  flank,  and  my  second  had  gone  through 
the  middle  of  his  body.  Next  Copple  amused  himself 
by  taking  pictures  of  bear  and  hounds.  Old  Dan  came 
to  me  and  lay  beside  me,  and  looked  as  if  to  say:  "Well, 
we  got  him!" 

Yells  from  both  sides  of  the  canyon  were  answered  by 
Edd,  R.  C.  was  rolling  the  rocks  on  his  side  at  a  great 
rate.  But  Nielsen  on  the  other  side  beat  him  to  us. 
The  Norwegian  crashed  the  brush,  sent  the  avalanches 
roaring,  and  eventually  reached  us,  all  dirty,  ragged, 
bloody,  with  fire  in  his  eye.  He  had  come  all  the  way 
from  the  rim  in  short  order.  What  a  performance  that 
must  have  been!  He  said  he  thought  he  might  be 
needed.  R.  C.  guided  by  Edd's  yells,  came  cracking  the 
brush  down  to  us.  Pale  he  was  and  wet  with  sweat,  and 
there  were  black  brush  marks  across  his  face.  His  eyes 
were  keen  and  sharp.  He  had  started  down  for  the  same 
reason  as  Nielsen's.  But  he  had  to  descend  a  slope  so 
steep  that  he  had  to  hold  on  to  keep  from  sliding  down. 
And  he  had  jumped  a  big  bear  out  of  a  bed  of  leaves. 
The  bed  was  still  warm.  R.  C.  said  he  had  smelled  bear, 
and  that  his  toboggan  slide  down  that  slope,  with  bears 
all  around  for  all  he  knew,  had  started  the  cold  sweat  on 
him. 

Presently  George  Haught  joined  us,  having  come  down 
the  bed  of  the  canyon. 

"We  knew  you'd  got  a  bear,"  said  George.  "Father 
heard  the  first  two  bullets  hit  meat.  An'  I  heard  him 
rollin'  down  the  slope." 

"Well!"  exclaimed  R.  C.     "That's  what  made  those 


TONTO  BASIN  371 

first  two  shots  sound  so  strange  to  me.  Bifierent  from 
the  last  two.  Sounded  like  soft  dead  pats !  And  it  was 
lead  hitting  flesh.     I  heard  it  half  a  mile  away ! " 

This  matter  of  the  sound  of  bullets  hitting  flesh  and 
being  heard  at  a  great  distance  seemed  to  me  the  most 
remarkable  feature  of  our  hunt.  Later  I  asked  Haught. 
He  said  he  heard  my  first  two  bullets  strike  and  believed 
from  the  peculiar  sound  that  I  had  my  bear.  And  his 
stand  was  fully  a  mile  away.  But  the  morning  was  un- 
usually still  and  sound  carried  far. 

The  men  hung  my  bear  from  the  forks  of  a  maple. 
Then  they  decided  to  give  us  time  to  climb  up  to  our 
stands  before  putting  the  hounds  on  the  other  fresh  trail. 

Nielsen,  R.  C,  and  I  started  to  climb  back  up  to  the 
points.  Only  plenty  of  time  made  it  possible  to  scale 
those  rugged  bluffs.  Nielsen  distanced  us,  and  even- 
tually we  became  separated.  The  sun  grew  warm.  The 
bees  hummed.  After  a  while  we  heard  the  baying  of  the 
hounds.  They  were  working  westward  under  the  bases 
of  the  bluffs.  We  rimmed  the  heads  of  several  gorges, 
climbed  and  crossed  the  west  ridge  of  Dude  Canyon, 
and  lost  the  hounds  somewhere  as  we  traveled. 

R.  C.  did  not  seem  to  mind  this  misfortune  any  more 
than  I.  We  were  content.  Resting  a  while  we  chose  the 
most  accessible  ridge  and  started  the  long  climb  to  the 
rim.  Westward  under  us  opened  a  great  noble  canyon 
full  of  forests,  thicketed  slopes,  cliffs  and  caves  and  crags. 
Next  time  we  rested  we  again  heard  the  hounds,  far  away 
at  first,  but  gradually  drawing  closer.  In  half  an  hour 
they  appeared  right  under  us  again.  Their  baying, 
however,  grew  desultory,  and  lacked  the  stirring  note. 
Finally  we  heard  Edd  calling  and  whistling  to  them. 
After  that  for  a  while  all  was  still.  Then  pealed  up 
the  clear  tuneful  melody  of  Edd's  horn,  calling  off 
the  chase  for  that  day  and  season. 


372  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

' '  All  over, ' '  said  R.  C.     "  Are  you  glad  ? ' ' 
"For  Old  Dan's  sake  and  Tom's  and  the  bears — ^yes," 
I  replied. 

"Me,  too!  But  I'd  never  get  enough  of  this  country." 
We  proceeded  on  our  ascent  over  and  up  the  broken 
masses  of  rock,  climbing  slowly  and  easily,  making  fre- 
quent and  long  rests.  We  liked  to  linger  in  the  sun  on 
the  warm  piny  mossy  benches.  Every  shady  cedar  or 
juniper  wooed  us  to  tarry  a  moment.  Old  bear  tracks 
and  fresh  deer  tracks  held  the  same  interest,  though  our 
hunt  was  over.  Above  us  the  gray  broken  mass  of  rim 
towered  and  loomed,  more  formidable  as  we  neared  it. 
Sometimes  we  talked  a  little,  but  mostly  we  were  silent. 
Like  an  Indian,  at  every  pause,  I  gazed  out  into  the 
void.  How  sweeping  and  grand  the  long  sloping  lines 
of  ridges  from  the  rim  down !  Away  in  the  east  ragged 
spurs  of  peaks  showed  hazily,  like  uncertain  mountains 
on  the  desert.  South  ranged  the  upheaved  and  wild 
Mazatzals.  Everywhere  beneath  me,  for  leagues  and 
leagues  extended  the  timbered  hills  of  green,  the  gray 
outcroppings  of  rocks,  the  red  bluffs,  the  golden  patches 
of  grassy  valleys,  lost  in  the  canyons.  All  these  swept 
away  in  a  vast  billowy  ocean  of  wilderness  to  become  dim 
in  the  purple  of  distance.  And  the  sun  was  setting  in  a 
blaze  of  gold.  From  the  rim  I  took  a  last  lingering  look 
and  did  not  marvel  that  I  loved  this  wonderland  of 
Arizona. 


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BURROS    PACKED    FOR   THE   TRAIL 


THE    DEADLY    CHOLLA,    MOST    POISONOUS    AND    PAIN    INFLICTING 

OF    THE    CACTUS 


CHAPTER  V 

DEATH  VALLEY 

/^F  the  five  hundred  and  fifty-seven  thousand  square 
^^  miles  of  desert -land  in  the  southwest  Death  Valley- 
is  the  lowest  below  sea  level,  the  most  arid  and  desolate. 
It  derives  its  felicitous  name  from  the  earliest  days  of  the 
gold  strike  in  California,  when  a  caravan  of  Mormons, 
numbei  ing  about  seventy,  struck  out  from  Salt  Lake,  to 
cross  the  Mojave  Desert  and  make  a  short  cut  to  the 
gold  fields.  All  but  two  of  these  prospectors  perished 
in  the  deep,  iron-walled,  ghastly  sink-holes,  which  from 
that  time  became  known  as  Death  Valley. 

The  survivors  of  this  fatal  expedition  brought  news  to 
the  world  that  the  sombre  valley  of  death  was  a  treasure 
mine  of  minerals;  and  since  then  hundreds  of  prospectors 
and  wanderers  have  lost  their  lives  there.  To  seek  gold 
and  to  live  in  the  lonely  waste  places  of  the  earth  have 
been  and  ever  will  be  driving  passions  of  men. 

My  companion  on  this  trip  was  a  Norwegian  named 
Nielsen.  On  most  of  my  trips  to  lonely  and  wild  places 
I  have  been  fortunate  as  to  comrades  or  guides.  The 
circumstances  of  my  meeting  Nielsen  were  so  singular 
that  I  think  they  will  serve  as  an  interesting  introduction. 
Some  years  ago  I  received  a  letter,  brief,  clear  and  well- 
written,  in  which  the  writer  stated  that  he  had  been  a 
wanderer  over  the  world,  a  sailor  before  the  mast,  and 
was  now  a  prospector  for  gold.  He  had  taken  four  trips 
alone  down  into  the  desert  of  Sonora,  and  in  many  other 
places  of  the  southwest,  and  knew  the  prospecting  game. 
Somewhere  he  had  run  across  my  story  Desert  Gold  in 
which  I  told  about  a  lost  gold  mine.  And  the  point  of 
his  letter  was  that  if  I  could  give  him  some  idea  as  to 

26  373 


374  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

where  the  lost  gold  mine  was  located  he  would  go  find  it 
and  give  me  half.  His  name  was  Sievert  Nielsen.  I 
wrote  him  that  to  my  regret  the  lost  gold  mine  existed 
only  in  my  imagination,  but  if  he  would  come  to  Avalon 
to  see  me  perhaps  we  might  both  profit  by  such  a  meeting. 
To  my  surprise  he  came.  He  was  a  man  of  about  thirty- 
five,  of  magnificent  physique,  weighing  about  one  hun- 
dred and  ninety,  and  he  was  so  enormously  broad  across 
the  shoulders  that  he  did  not  look  his  five  feet  ten.  He 
had  a  wonderful  head,  huge,  round,  solid,  like  a  cannon- 
ball.  And  his  bronzed  face,  his  regular  features,  square 
firm  jaw,  and  clear  gray  eyes,  fearless  and  direct,  were 
singularly  attractive  to  me.  Well  educated,  with  a 
strange  calm  poise,  and  a  cool  courtesy,  not  common  in 
Americans,  he  evidently  was  a  man  of  good  family,  by 
his  own  choice  a  rolling  stone  and  adventurer. 

Nielsen  accompanied  me  on  two  trips  into  the  wilder- 
ness of  Arizona,  on  one  of  which  he  saved  my  life,  and  on 
the  other  he  rescued  all  our  party  from  a  most  un- 
comfortable and  possibly  hazardous  situation — but  these 
are  tales  I  may  tell  elsewhere.  In  January  1919  Nielsen 
and  I  traveled  around  the  desert  of  southern  California 
from  Palm  Springs  to  Picacho,  and  in  March  we  went  to 
Death  Valley. 

Nowadays  a  little  railroad,  the  Tonapah  and  Tidewater 
Railroad,  runs  northward  from  the  Santa  Fe  over  the 
barren  Mojave,  and  it  passes  within  fifty  miles  of  Death 
Valley. 

It  was  sunset  when  we  arrived  at  Death  Valley  Junc- 
tion— a  weird,  strange  sunset  in  drooping  curtains  of 
transparent  cloud,  lighting  up  dark  mountain  ranges, 
some  peaks  of  which  were  clear-cut  and  black  against  the 
sky,  and  others  veiled  in  trailing  storms,  and  still  others 
white  with  snow.  That  night  in  the  dingy  little  store 
I  heard  prospectors  talk  about  float,  which  meant  gold 


DEATH  VALLEY  375 

on  the  surface,  and  about  high  grade  ores,  zinc,  copper, 

silver,  lead,  manganese,  and  about  how  borax  was  mined 

thirty  years  ago,  and  hauled  out  of  Death  Valley  by 

teams  of  twenty  mules.     Next  morning,  while  Nielsen 

packed  the  outfit,  I  visited  the  borax  mill.     It  was  the 

property  of  an  English  firm,  and  the  work  of  hauling, 

grinding,  roasting  borax  ore  went  on  day  and  night. 

Inside  it  was  as  dusty  and  full  of  a  powdery  atmosphere 

as  an  old-fashioned  flour  mill.     The  ore  was  hauled  by 

train  from  some  twenty  miles  over  toward  the  valley, 

and  was  dumped  from  a  high  trestle  into  shutes  that  fed 

the  grinders.     For  an  hour  I  watched  this  constant 

stream  of  borax  as  it  slid  down  into  the  hungry  crushers, 

and  I  listened  to  the  chalk-faced  operator  who  yelled  in 

my  ear.     Once  he  picked  a  piece  of  gypsum  out  of  the 

borax.     He  said  the  mill  was  getting  out  twenty-five 

hundred  sacks  a  day.     The  most  significant  thing  he  said 

was  that  men  did  not  last  long  at  such  labor,  and  in  the 

mines  six  months  appeared  to  be  the  limit  of  human 

endurance.     How  soon  I  had  enough  of  that  choking  air 

in  the  room  where  the  borax  was  ground !     And  the  place 

where  the  borax  was  roasted  in  huge  round  revolving 

furnaces — I  found  that  intolerable.     When  I  got  out  into 

the  cool  clean  desert  air  I  felt  an  immeasurable  relief. 

And  that  relief  made  me  thoughtful  of  the  lives  of  men 

who  labored,  who  were  chained  by  necessity,  by  duty  or 

habit,  or  by  love,  to  the  hard  tasks  of  the  world.     It  did 

not  seem  fair.     These  laborers  of  the  borax  mines  and 

mills,  like  the  stokers  of  ships,  and  coal-diggers,  and 

blast-furnace  hands — like  thousands  and  millions  of  men, 

killed  themselves  outright  or  impaired  their  strength, 

and  when  they  were  gone  or  rendered  useless  others  were 

found  to  take  their  places.     Whenever  I  come  in  contact 

with  some  phase  of  this  problem  of  life  I  take  the  meaning 

or  the  lesson  of  it  to  myself.     And  as  the  years  go  by  my 


376  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

respect  and  reverence  and  wonder  increase  for  these  men 
of  elemental  lives,  these  homy-handed  toilers  with  physi- 
cal things,  these  uncomplaining  users  of  brawn  and  bone, 
these  giants  who  breast  the  elements,  who  till  the  earth 
and  handle  iron,  who  fight  the  natural  forces  with  their 
bodies. 

That  day  about  noon  I  looked  back  down  the  long 
gravel  and  greasewood  slope  which  we  had  ascended  and 
I  saw  the  borax-mill  now  only  a  smoky  blot  on  the  desert 
floor.  When  we  reached  the  pass  between  the  Black 
Mountains  and  the  Funeral  Mountains  we  left  the  road, 
and  were  soon  lost  to  the  works  of  man.  How  strange  a 
gladness,  a  relief!  Something  dropped  away  from  me. 
I  felt  the  same  subtle  change  in  Nielsen.  For  one  thing 
he  stopped  talking,  except  an  occasional  word  to  the 
mules. 

The  blunt  end  of  the  Funeral  Range  was  as  remarkable 
as  its  name.  It  sheered  up  very  high,  a  saw-toothed 
range  with  colored  strata  tilted  at  an  angle  of  forty-five 
degrees.  Zigzag  veins  of  black  and  red  and  yellow, 
rather  dull,  ran  through  the  great  drab-gray  mass.  This 
end  of  the  range,  an  iron  mountain,  frowned  down  upon 
us  with  hard  and  formidable  aspect.  The  peak  was 
draped  in  strealcy  veils  of  rain  from  low-dropping  clouds 
that  appeared  to  have  lodged  there.  All  below  lay  clear 
and  cold  in  the  sunlight. 

Our  direction  lay  to  the  westward,  and  at  that  altitude, 
about  three  thousand  feet,  how  pleasant  to  face  the  sun ! 
For  the  wind  was  cold.  The  narrow  shallow  wash  leading 
down  from  the  pass  deepened,  widened,  almost  imper- 
ceptibly at  first,  and  then  gradually  until  its  proportions 
were  striking.  It  was  a  gully  where  the  gravel  washed 
down  during  rains,  and  where  a  scant  vegetation,  grease- 
wood,  and  few  low  cacti  and  scrubby  sage  struggled  for 
existence.     Not  a  bird  or  lizard  or  living  creature  in 


THE   COLORED   CALICO   MOUNTAINS 


DOWN   THE   LONG   WINDING   WASH   TO   DEATH   VALLEY 


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DEATH  VALLEY  377 

sight !  The  trail  was  getting  lonely.  From  time  to  time 
I  looked  back,  because  as  we  could  not  see  far  ahead  all 
the  superb  scene  spread  and  towered  behind  us.  By  and 
bye  our  wash  grew  to  be  a  wide  canyon,  winding  away 
from  under  the  massive,  impondering  wall  of  the  Funeral 
Range.  The  high  side  of  this  magnificent  and  impressive 
line  of  mountains  faced  west — a  succession  of  unscalable 
slopes  of  bare  ragged  rock,  jagged  and  jutted,  dark  drab, 
rusty  iron,  with  gray  and  oblique  strata  running  through 
them  far  as  eye  could  see.  Clouds  soared  around  the 
peaks.     Shadows  sailed  along  the  slopes. 

Walking  in  loose  gravel  was  as  hard  as  trudging  along 
in  sand.  After  about  fifteen  miles  I  began  to  have  leaden 
feet.  I  did  not  mind  hard  work,  but  I  wanted  to  avoid 
over-exertion.  When  I  am  extremely  wearied  my  feel- 
ings are  liable  to  be  colored  somewhat  by  depression  or 
melancholy.  Then  it  always  bothered  me  to  get  tired 
while  Nielsen  kept  on  with  his  wonderful  stride. 

"Say,  Nielsen,  do  you  take  me  for  a  Yaqui?"  I  com- 
plained.    "Slow  up  a  little." 

Then  he  obliged  me,  and  to  cheer  me  up  he  told  me 
about  a  little  tramping  experience  he  had  in  Baja  Cali- 
fornia. Somewhere  on  the  east  slope  of  the  Sierra  Madre 
his  burros  strayed  or  were  killed  by  mountain-lions,  and 
he  found  it  imperative  to  strike  at  once  for  the  nearest 
ranch  below  the  border,  a  distance  of  one  hundred  and 
fifty  miles.  He  could  carry  only  so.much  of  his  outfit, 
and  as  some  of  it  was  valuable  to  him  he  discarded  all 
his  food  except  a  few  biscuits,  and  a  canteen  of  water. 
Resting  only  a  few  hours,  without  sleep  at  all,  he  walked 
the  hundred  and  fifty  miles  in  three  days  and  nights.  I 
believed  that  Nielsen,  by  telling  me  such  incidents  of  his 
own  wild  experience,  inspired  me  to  more  endurance  than 
I  knew  I  possessed. 

As  we  traveled  on  down  the  canyon  its  dimensions 


378  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

continued  to  grow.  It  finally  turned  to  the  left,  and 
opened  out  wide  into  a  valley  running  west.  A  low 
range  of  hills  faced  us,  rising  in  a  long  sweeping  slant  of 
earth,  like  the  incline  of  a  glacier,  to  rounded  spurs. 
Half  way  up  this  slope,  where  the  brown  earth  lightened 
there  showed  an  outcropping  of  clay-amber  and  cream 
and  cinnamon  and  green,  all  exquisitely  vivid  and  clear. 
This  bright  spot  appeared  to  be  isolated.  Far  above  it 
rose  other  clay  slopes  of  variegated  hues,  red  and  russet 
and  mauve  and  gray,  and  colors  indescribably  merged, 
all  running  in  veins  through  this  range  of  hills.  We 
faced  the  west  again,  and  descending  this  valley  were 
soon  greeted  by  a  region  of  clay  hills,  bare,  cone-shaped, 
fantastic  in  shade,  slope,  and  ridge,  with  a  high  sharp 
peak  dominating  all.  The  colors  were  mauve,  taupe, 
pearl-gray,  all  stained  by  a  descending  band  of  crimson, 
as  if  a  higher  slope  had  been  stabbed  to  let  its  life  blood 
flow  down.  The  softness,  the  richness  and  beauty  of 
this  texture  of  earth  amazed  and  delighted  my  eyes. 

Quite  unprepared,  at  time  approaching  sunset,  we 
reached  and  rounded  a  sharp  curve,  to  see  down  and  far 
away,  and  to  be  held  mute  in  our  tracks.  Between  a 
white-mantled  mountain  range  on  the  left  and  the  dark- 
striped  lofty  range  on  the  right  I  could  see  far  down  into 
a  gulf,  a  hazy  void,  a  vast  stark  valley  that  seemed 
streaked  and  ridged  and  canyoned,  an  abyss  into  which 
veils  of  rain  were  dropping  and  over  which  broken  clouds 
hung,  pierced  by  red  and  gold  rays. 

Death  Valley!  Far  down  and  far  away  still,  yet  con- 
founding at  first  sight!  I  gazed  spellbound.  It  op- 
pressed my  heart.  Nielsen  stood  like  a  statue,  silent, 
absorbed  for  a  moment,  then  he  strode  on.  I  followed, 
and  every  second  saw  more  and  different  aspects,  that 
could  not,  however,  change  the  first  stunning  impression. 
Immense,  unreal,  weird !     I  went  on  down  the  widening 


DEATH  VALLEY  379 

canyon,  looking  into  that  changing  void.  How  full  of 
color!  It  smoked.  The  traceries  of  streams  or  shining 
white  washes  brightened  the  floor  of  the  long  dark  pit. 
Patches  and  plains  of  white,  borax  flats  or  alkali,  showed 
up  like  snow.  A  red  haze,  sinister  and  sombre,  hung  over 
the  eastern  ramparts  of  this  valley,  and  over  the  western 
drooped  gray  veils  of  rain,  like  thinnest  lacy  clouds, 
through  which  gleams  of  the  sun  shone. 

Nielsen  plodded  on,  mindful  of  our  mules.  But  I 
lingered,  and  at  last  checked  my  reluctant  steps  at  an 
open  high  point  with  commanding  and  magnificent  view. 
As  I  did  not  attempt  the  impossible — to  write  down 
thoughts  and  sensations — afterward  I  could  remember 
only  a  few.  How  desolate  and  grand!  The  far-away, 
lonely  and  terrible  places  of  the  earth  were  the  most 
beautiful  and  elevating.  Life's  little  day  seemed  so  easy 
to  understand,  so  pitiful.  As  the  sun  began  to  set  and 
the  storm-clouds  moved  across  it  this  wondrous  scene 
darkened,  changed  every  moment,  brightened,  grew  full 
of  luminous  red  light  and  then  streaked  by  golden  gleams. 
The  tips  of  the  Panamint  Mountains  came  out  silver 
above  the  purple  clouds.  At  sunset  the  moment  was 
glorious — -dark,  forbidding,  dim,  weird,  dismal,  yet  still 
tinged  with  gold.  Not  like  any  other  scene!  Dante's 
Inferno !     Valley  of  Shadows !     Canyon  of  Purple  Veils ! 

When  the  sun  had  set  and  all  that  upheaved  and  fur- 
rowed world  of  rock  had  received  a  mantle  of  gray,  and 
a  slumberous  sulphurous  ruddy  haze  slowly  darkened  to 
purple  and  black,  then  I  realized  more  fully  that  I  was 
looking  down  into  Death  Valley. 

Twilight  was  stealing  down  when  I  caught  up  with 
Nielsen.  He  had  selected  for  our  camp  a  protected  nook 
near  where  the  canyon  floor  bore  some  patches  of  sage, 
the  stalks  and  roots  of  which  would  serve  for  firewood. 
We  unpacked,  fed  the  mules  some  grain,  pitched  our  little 


3  So  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

tent  and  made  our  bed  all  in  short  order.  But  it  was 
dark  long  before  we  had  supper.  During  the  meal  we 
talked  a  little,  but  afterward,  when  the  chores  were  done, 
and  the  mules  had  become  quiet,  and  the  strange  thick 
silence  had  settled  down  upon  us,  we  did  not  talk 
at  all. 

The  night  was  black,  with  sky  mostly  obscured  by 
clouds.  A  pale  haze  marked  the  west  where  the  after 
glow  had  faded ;  in  the  south  one  radiant  star  crowned  a 
mountain  peak.  I  strolled  away  in  the  darkness  and 
sat  down  upon  a  stone.  How  intense  the  silence !  Dead, 
vast,  sepulchre-like,  dreaming,  waiting,  a  silence  of  ages, 
burdened  with  the  history  of  the  past,  awful !  I  strained 
my  ears  for  sound  of  insect  or  rustle  of  sage  or  drop  of 
weathered  rock.  The  soft  cool  desert  wind  was  sound- 
less. This  silence  had  something  terrifying  in  it,  making 
me  a  man  alone  on  the  earth.  The  great  spaces,  the 
wild  places  as  they  had  been  millions  of  years  before! 
I  seemed  to  divine  how  through  them  man  might  develop 
from  savage  to  a  god,  and  how  alas!  he  might  go  back 
again. 

When  I  returned  to  camp  Nielsen  had  gone  to  bed  and 
the  fire  had  burned  low.  I  threw  on  some  branches  of 
sage.  The  fire  blazed  up.  But  it  seemed  different  from 
other  camp-fires.  No  cheer,  no  glow,  no  sparkle!  Per- 
haps it  was  owing  to  scant  and  poor  wood.  Still  I 
thought  it  was  owing  as  much  to  \he  place.  The  sadness, 
the  loneliness,  the  desolateness  of  this  place  weighed  upon 
the  camp-fire  the  same  as  it  did  upon  my  heart. 

We  got  up  at  five-thirty.  At  dawn  the  sky  was  a  cold 
leaden  gray,  with  a  dull  gold  and  rose  in  the  east.  A  hard 
wind,  eager  and  nipping,  blew  up  the  canyon.  At  six 
o'clock  the  sky  brightened  somewhat  and  the  day  did  not 
promise  so  threatening. 

An  hour  later  we  broke  camp.     Traveling  in  the  early 


DEATH  VALLEY  381 

morning  was  pleasant  and  we  made  good  time  down  the 
winding  canyon,  arriving  at  Furnace  Creek  about  noon, 
where  we  halted  to  rest.  This  stream  of  warm  water 
flowed  down  from  a  gully  that  headed  up  in  the  Funeral 
Mountains.  It  had  a  disagreeable  taste,  somewhat  acrid 
and  soapy.  A  green  thicket  of  brush  was  indeed  welcome 
to  the  eye.  It  consisted  of  a  rank  coarse  kind  of  grass, 
and  arrowweed,  mesquite,  and  tamarack.  The  last 
named  bore  a  pink  fuzzy  blossom,  not  unlike  pussy- 
willow, which  was  quite  fragrant.  Here  the  deadness  of 
the  region  seemed  further  enlivened  by  several  small 
birds,  speckled  and  gray,  two  ravens,  and  a  hawk.  They 
all  appeared  to  be  hunting  food.  On  a  ridge  above 
Furnace  Creek  we  came  upon  a  spring  of  poison  water. 
It  was  clear,  sparkling,  with  a  greenish  cast,  and  it  de- 
posited a  white  crust  on  the  margins.  Nielsen,  kicking 
around  in  the  sand,  unearthed  a  skull,  bleached  and 
yellow,  yet  evidently  not  so  very  old.  Some  thirsty 
wanderer  had  taken  his  last  drink  at  that  deceiving 
spring.  The  gruesome  and  the  beautiful,  the  tragic  and 
the  sublime,  go  hand  in  hand  down  the  naked  shingle  of 
this  desolate  desert. 

While  tramping  around  in  the  neighborhood  of  Furnace 
Creek  I  happened  upon  an  old  almost  obliterated  trail. 
It  led  toward  the  ridges  of  clay,  and  when  I  had  climbed 
it  a  little  ways  I  began  to  get  an  impression  that  the 
slopes  on  the  other  side  must  run  down  into  a  basin  or 
canyon.     So  I  climbed  to  the  top. 

The  magnificent  scenes  of  desert  and  mountain,  like 
the  splendid  things  of  life,  must  be  climbed  for.  In  this 
instance  I  was  suddenly  and  stunningly  confronted  by  a 
yellow  gulf  of  cone-shaped  and  fan-shaped  ridges,  all  bare 
crinkly  clay,  of  gold,  of  amber,  of  pink,  of  bronze,  of 
cream,  all  tapering  down  to  round-knobbed  lower 
ridges,  bleak  and  barren,  yet  wonderfully  beautiful  in 


382  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

their  stark  purity  of  denudation ;  until  at  last  far  down 
between  two  widely  separated  hills  shone,  dim  and  blue 
and  ghastly,  with  shining  white  streaks  like  silver  streams 
— the  Valley  of  Death.  Then  beyond  it  climbed  the 
league-long  red  slope,  merging  into  the  iron -buttressed 
base  of  the  Panamint  Range,  and  here  line  on  line,  and 
bulge  on  bulge  rose  the  bold  benches,  and  on  up  the  un- 
scalable outcroppings  of  rock,  like  colossal  ribs  of  the 
earth,  on  and  up  the  steep  slopes  to  where  their  density 
of  blue  black  color  began  to  thin  out  with  streaks  of 
white,  and  thence  upward  to  the  last  noble  height,  where 
the  cold  pure  snow  gleamed  against  the  sky. 

I  descended  into  this  yellow  maze,  this  world  of  gullies 
and  ridges  where  I  found  it  difficult  to  keep  from  getting 
lost.  I  did  lose  my  bearings,  but  as  my  boots  made  deep 
imprints  in  the  soft  clay  I  knew  it  would  be  easy  to 
back-track  my  trail.  After  a  while  this  labyrinthine 
series  of  channels  and  dunes  opened  into  a  wide  space 
enclosed  on  three  sides  by  denuded  slopes,  mostly  yellow. 
These  slopes  were  smooth,  graceful,  symmetrical,  with 
tiny"  tracery  of  erosion,  and  each  appeared  to  retain  its 
own  color,  yellow  or  cinnamon  or  mauve.  But  they  were 
always  dominated  by  a  higher  one  of  a  different  color. 
And  this  mystic  region  sloped  and  slanted  to  a  great 
amphitheater  that  was  walled  on  the  opposite  side  by  a 
mountain  of  bare  earth,  of  every  hue,  and  of  a  thousand 
ribbed  and  scalloped  surfaces.  At  its  base  the  golds  and 
russets  and  yellows  were  strongest,  but  ascending  its 
slopes  were  changing  colors — a  dark  beautiful  mouse 
color  on  one  side  and  a  strange  pearly  cream  on  the  other. 
Between  these  great  comers  of  the  curve  climbed  ridges 
of  gray  and  heliotrope  and  amber,  to  meet  wonderful 
veins  of  green — green  as  the  sea  in  sunlight — and  tracery 
of  white — and  on  the  bold  face  of  this  amphitheater,  high 
up,  stood  out  a  zigzag  belt  of  dull  red,  the  stain  of  which 


DEATH  VALLEY  383 

had  run  down  to  tinge  the  other  hues.  Above  all  this 
wondrous  coloration  upheaved  the  bare  breast  of  the 
mountain,  growing  darker  with  earthy  browns,  up  to  the 
gray  old  rock  ramparts. 

This  place  affected  me  so  strangely,  so  irresistibly  that 
I  remained  there  a  long  time.  Something  terrible  had 
happened  there  to  men.  I  felt  that.  Something  tragic 
was  going  on  right  then — the  wearing  down,  the  devasta- 
tion of  the  old  earth.  How  plainly  that  could  be  seen ! 
Geologically  it  was  more  remarkable  to  me  than  the 
Grand  Canyon.  But  it  was  the  appalling  meaning,  the 
absolutely  indescribable  beauty  that  overcame  me.  I 
thought  of  those  who  had  been  inspiration  to  me  in  my 
work,  and  I  suffered  a  pang  that  they  could  not  be  there 
to  see  and  feel  with  me. 

On  my  way  out  of  this  amphitheater  a  hard  wind 
swooped  down  over  the  slopes,  tearing  up  the  colored 
dust  in  sheets  and  clouds.  It  seemed  to  me  each  gully 
had  its  mystic  pall  of  color.  I  lost  no  time  climbing  out. 
What  a  hot  choking  ordeal!  But  I  never  would  have 
missed  it  even  had  I  known  I  would  get  lost.  Looking 
down  again  the  scene  was  vastly  changed.  A  smoky 
weird  murky  hell  with  the  dull  sun  gleaming  magenta- 
hued  through  the  shifting  pall  of  dust ! 

In  the  afternoon  we  proceeded  leisurely,  through  an 
atmosphere  growing  warmer  and  denser,  down  to  the 
valley,  reaching  it  at  dusk.  We  followed  the  course  of 
Furnace  Creek  and  made  camp  under  some  cottonwood 
trees,  on  the  west  slope  of  the  valley. 

The  wind  blew  a  warm  gale  all  night.  I  lay  awake  a 
while  and  slept  with  very  little  covering.  Toward  dawn 
the  gale  died  away.  I  was  up  at  five-thirty.  The  morn- 
ing broke  fine,  clear,  balmy.  A  flare  of  pale  gleaming 
light  over  the  Funeral  Range  heralded  the  sunrise.  The 
tips  of  the  higher  snow-capped  Panamints  were  rose 


384  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

colored,  and  below  them  the  slopes  were  red.  The  bulk 
of  the  range  showed  dark.  All  these  features  gradually 
brightened  until  the  sun  came  up.  How  blazing  and 
intense!  The  wind  began  to  blow  again.  Under  the 
cottonwoods  with  their  rustling  leaves,  and  green  so 
soothing  to  the  eye,  it  was  very  pleasant. 

Beyond  our  camp  stood  green  and  pink  thickets  of 
tamarack,  and  some  dark  velvety  green  alfalfa  fields, 
made  possible  by  the  spreading  of  Furnace  Creek  over 
the  valley  slope.  A  man  lived  there,  and  raised  this 
alfalfa  for  the  mules  of  the  borax  miners.  He  lived  there 
alone  and  his  was  indeed  a  lonely,  wonderful,  and  terrible 
life.  At  this  season  a  few  Shoshone  Indians  were  camped 
near,  helping  him  in  his  labors.  This  lone  rancher's 
name  was  Denton,  and  he  turned  out  to  be  a  brother  of  a 
Denton,  hunter  and  guide,  whom  I  had  met  in  Lower 
California. 

Like  all  desert  men,  used  to  silence,  Denton  talked 
with  difficulty,  but  the  content  of  his  speech  made  up  for 
its  brevity.  He  told  us  about  the  wanderers  and  pros- 
pectors he  had  rescued  from  death  by  starvation  and 
thirst;  he  told  us  about  the  terrific  noonday  heat  of 
summer;  and  about  the  incredible  and  horrible  midnight 
furnace  gales  that  swept  down  the  valley.  'With  the 
mercury  at  one  hundred  and  twenty-five  degrees  at  mid- 
night, below  the  level  of  the  sea,  when  these  furnace 
blasts  bore  down  upon  him,  it  was  just  all  he  could  do  to  si 

live.     No  man  could  spend  many  summers  there.     As  '  i 

for  white  women— Death  Valley  was  fatal  to  them.   The  .| 

Indians  spent  the  summers  up  on  the  mountains.  Den- 
ton said  heat  aft'ected  men  dijfferently.  Those  who  were  < 
meat  eaters  or  alcohol  drinkers,  could  not  survive.  I 
Perfect  heart  and  lungs  .were  necessary  to  stand  the  heat  | 
and  density  of  atmosphere  below  sea  level.  He  told  of  a  f 
man  who  had  visited  his  cabin,  and  had  left  early  in  the              I 

V: 

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DESERT   GRAVES 


THE   GHASTLY    SWEEP   OF    DEATH    VALLEY 


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DEATH  VALLEY  385 

day,  vigorous  and  strong.  A  few  hours  later  he  was  found 
near  the  oasis  unable  to  walk,  crawling  on  his  hands  and 
knees,  dragging  a  full  canteen  of  water.  He  never  knew 
what  ailed  him.  It  might  have  been  heat,  for  the  ther- 
mometer registered  one  hundred  and  thirty-five,  and  it 
might  have  been  poison  gas.  Another  man,  young,  of 
heavy  and  powerful  build,  lost  seventy  pounds  weight  in 
less  than  two  days,  and  was  nearly  dead  when  found.  The 
heat  of  Death  Valley  quickly  dried  up  blood,  tissue,  bone. 
Denton  told  of  a  prospector  who  started  out  at  dawn 
strong  and  rational,  to  return  at  sunset  so  crazy  that  he 
had  to  be  tied  to  keep  him  out  of  the  water.  To  have 
drunk  his  fill  then  would  have  killed  him !  He  had  to  be 
fed  water  by  spoonful.  Another  wanderer  came  stagger- 
ing into  the  oasis,  blind,  with  horrible  face,  and  black 
swollen  tongue  protruding.  He  could  not  make  a  sound. 
He  also  had  to  be  roped,  as  if  he  were  a  mad  steer. 

I  met  only  one  prospector  during  my  stay  in  Death 
Valley.  He  camped  with  us.  A  rather  tmdersized  man 
he  was,  yet  muscular,  with  brown  wrinkled  face  and  nar- 
row dim  eyes.  He  seemed  to  be  smiling  to  himself  most 
of  the  time.  He  liked  to  talk  to  his  burros.  He  was 
exceedingly  interesting.  Once  he  nearly  died  of  thirst, 
having  gone  from  noon  one  day  till  next  morning  without 
water.  He  said  he  fell  down  often  during  this  ordeal, 
but  did  not  lose  his  senses.  Finally  the  burros  saved  his 
life.  This  old  fellow  had  been  across  Death  Valley  every 
month  in  the  year.  July  was  the  worst.  In  that 
month  crossing  should  not  be  attempted  during  the 
middle  of  the  day. 

I  made  the  acquaintance  of  the  Shoshone  Indians,  or 
rather  through  Nielsen  I  met  them.  Nielsen  had  a 
kindly,  friendly  way  with  Indians.  There  were  half  a 
dozen  families,  living  in  squalid  tents.  The  braves 
worked  in  the  fields  for  Denton  and  the  squaws  kept  to 


386  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

the  shade  with  their  numerous  children.  They  appeared 
to  be  poor.  Certainly  they  were  a  ragged  unpicturesque 
group.  Nielsen  and  I  visited  them,  taking  an  armload  of 
canned  fruit,  and  boxes  of  sweet  crackers,  which  they 
received  with  evident  joy.  Through  this  overture  I  got 
a  peep  into  one  of  the  tents.  The  simplicity  an d  frugality 
of  the  desert  Piute  or  Navajo  were  here  wanting.  These 
children  of  the  open  wore  white  men's  apparel  and  ate 
white  men's  food;  and  they  even  had  a  cook  stove  and 
a  sewing  machine  in  their  tent.  With  all  that  they  were 
trying  to  live  like  Indians.  For  me  the  spectacle  was 
melancholy.  Another  manifestation  added  to  my  long 
list  of  degeneration  of  the  Indians  by  the  whites!  The 
tent  was  a  buzzing  beehive  of  flies.  I  never  before  saw 
so  many.  In  a  comer  I  saw  a  naked  Indian  baby  asleep 
on  a  goat  skin,  all  his  brown  warm-tinted  skin  spotted 
black  with  flies. 

Later  in  the  day  one  of  the  Indian  men  called  upon  us 
at  our  camp.  I  was  surprised  to  hear  him  use  good 
English.  He  said  he  had  been  educated  in  a  government 
school  in  California.  From  him  I  learned  considerable 
about  Death  Valley.  As  he  was  about  to  depart,  on  the 
way  to  his  labor  in  the  fields,  he  put  his  hand  in  his 
ragged  pocket  and  drew  forth  an  old  beaded  hat  band, 
and  with  calm  dignity,  worthy  of  any  gift,  he  made  me  a 
present  of  it.     Then  he  went  on  his  way.     The  incident  ; 

touched  me.     I  had  been  kind.     The  Indian  was  not  to  i 

be  outdone.     How   that   reminded   me   of   the   many  •• 

instances  of  pride  in  Indians!    Who  yet  has  ever  told  t 

the  story  of  the  Indian— the  truth,  the  spirit,  the  soul  of  \ 

his  tragedy?  \ 

Nielsen  and  I  climbed  high  up  the  west  slope  to  the  i 

top  of  a  gravel  ridge  swept  clean  and  packed  hard  by  the 
winds.  Here  I  sat  down  while  my  companion  tramped 
curiously  around.     At  my  feet  I  found  a  tiny  flower,  so 


DEATH  VALLEY  387 

tiny  as  to  almost  defy  detection.  The  color  resembled 
sage-gray  and  it  had  the  fragrance  of  sage.  Hard  to  find 
and  wonderful  to  see — was  its  tiny  blossom !  The  small 
leaves  were  perfectly  formed,  very  soft,  veined  and  scal- 
loped, with  a  fine  fuzz  and  a  glistening  sparkle.  That 
desert  flower  of  a  day,  in  its  isolation  and  fragility,  yet 
its  unquenchable  spirit  to  live,  was  as  great  to  me  as  the 
tremendous  reddening  bulk  of  the  Funeral  Mountains 
looming  so  sinisterly  over  me. 

Then  I  saw  some  large  bats  with  white  heads  flitting 
around  in  zigzag  flights — assuredly  new  and  strange 
creatures  to  me. 

I  had  come  up  there  to  this  high  ridge  to  take  advan- 
tage of  the  bleak  lonely  spot  commanding  a  view  of 
valley  and  mountains.  Before  I  could  compose  myself 
to  watch  the  valley  I  made  the  discovery  that  near  me 
were  six  low  gravelly  mounds.  Graves!  One  had  two 
stones  at  head  and  foot.  Another  had  no  mark  at  all. 
The  one  nearest  me  had  for  the  head  a  flat  piece  of  board, 
with  lettering  so  effaced  by  weather  that  I  could  not 
decipher  the  inscription.  The  bones  of  a  horse  lay  lit- 
tered about  between  the  graves.  What  a  lonely  place 
for  graves !  Death  Valley  seemed  to  be  one  vast  sepul- 
chre. What  had  been  the  lives  and  deaths  of  these 
people  buried  here?  Lonely,  melancholy,  nameless 
graves  upon  the  windy  desert  slope ! 

By  this  time  the  long  shadows  had  begun  to  fall. 
Sunset  over  Death  Valley !  A  golden  flare  burned  over 
the  Panamints — long  tapering  notched  mountains  with 
all  their  rugged  conformation  showing.  Above  floated 
gold  and  gray  and  silver-edged  clouds — below  shone  a 
whorl  of  dusky,  ruddy  bronze  haze,  gradually  thickening. 
Dim  veils  of  heat  still  rose  from  the  pale  desert  valley. 
As  I  watched  all  before  me  seemed  to  change  and  be 
shrouded  in  purple.     How  bold  and  desolate  a  scene! 


388  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

What  vast  scale  and  tremendous  dimension !  The  clouds 
paled,  turned  rosy  for  a  moment  with  the  afterglow,  then 
deepened  into  purple  gloom.  A  sombre  smoky  sunset, 
as  if  this  Death  Valley  was  the  gateway  of  hell,  and  its 
sinister  shades  were  upflung  from  fire. 

The  desert  day  was  done  and  now  the  desert  twilight 
descended.  Twilight  of  hazy  purple  fell  over  the  valley 
of  shadows.  The  black  bold  lines  of  m.ountains  ran 
across  the  sky  and  down  into  the  valley  and  up  on  the 
other  side.  A  buzzard  sailed  low  in  the  foreground — 
fitting  emblem  of  life  in  all  that  wilderness  of  suggested 
death.  This  fleeting  hour  was  tranquil  and  sad.  What 
little  had  it  to  do  with  the  destiny  of  man!  Death 
Valley  was  only  a  ragged  rent  of  the  old  earth,  from 
which  men  in  their  folly  and  passion,  had  sought  to  dig 
forth  golden  treasure.  The  air  held  a  solemn  stillness. 
Peace!  How  it  rested  my  troubled  soul!  I  felt  that  I 
was  myself  here,  far  different  from  my  habitual  self. 
Why  had  I  longed  to  see  Death  Valley?  What  did  I 
want  of  the  desert  that  was  naked,  red,  sinister,  sombre, 
forbidding,  ghastly,  stark,  dim  and  dark  and  dismal,  the 
abode  of  silence  and  loneliness,  the  proof  of  death,  decay, 
devastation  and  destruction,  the  majestic  sublimity  of 
desolation?  The  answer  was  that  I  sought  the  awful, 
the  appalling  and  terrible  because  they  harked  me  back 
to  a  primitive  day  where  my  blood  and  bones  were  be- 
queathed their  heritage  of  the  elements.  That  was  the 
secret  of  the  eternal  fascination  the  desert  exerted  upon 
all  men.  It  carried  them  back.  It  inhibited  thought. 
It  brought  up  the  age-old  sensations,  so  that  I  could  feel, 
though  I  did  not  know  it  then,  once  again  the  all-satisfy- 
ing state  of  the  savage  in  nature. 

When  I  returned  to  camp  night  had  fallen.  The 
evening  star  stood  high  in  the  pale  sky,  all  alone  and 
difficult  to  see,  yet  the  more  beautiful  for  that.     The 


DEATH  VALLEY  389 

night  appeared  to  be  warmer  or  perhaps  it  was  because 
no  wind  blew.  Nielsen  got  supper,  and  ate  most  of  it, 
for  I  was  not  hungry.  As  I  sat  by  the  camp-fire  a  flock 
of  little  bats,  the  smallest  I  had  ever  seen,  darted  from 
the  wood-pile  nearby  and  flew  right  in  my  face.  They 
had  no  fear  of  man  or  fire.  Their  wings  made  a  soft 
swishing  sound.  Later  I  heard  the  trill  of  frogs,  which 
was  the  last  sound  I  might  have  expected  to  hear  in 
Death  Valley.  A  sweet  high-pitched  melodious  trill  it 
reminded  me  of  the  music  made  by  frogs  in  the  Tamauli- 
pas  Jungle  of  Mexico.  Every  time  I  awakened  that  night, 
and  it  was  often,  I  heard  this  trill.  Once,  too,  sometime 
late,  my  listening  ear  caught  faint  mournful  notes  of  a 
killdeer.  How  strange,  and  still  sweeter  than  the  trill! 
What  a  touch  to  the  infinite  silence  and  loneliness!  A 
killdeer — bird  of  the  swamps  and  marshes — what  could 
he  be  doing  in  arid  and  barren  Death  Valley  ?  Nature  is 
mysterious  and  inscrutable. 

Next  morning  the  marvel  of  nature  was  exemplified 
even  more  strikingly.  Out  on  the  hard  gravel-strewn 
slope  I  found  some  more  tiny  flowers  of  a  day.  One  was 
a  white  daisy,  very  frail  and  delicate  on  long  thin  stem 
with  scarcely  any  leaves.  Another  was  a  yellow  flower, 
with  four  petals,  a  pale  miniature  California  poppy. 
Still  another  was  a  purple-red  flower,  almost  as  large  as 
a  buttercup,  with  dark  green  leaves.  Last  and  tiniest  of 
all  were  infinitely  fragile  pink  and  white  blossoms,  on 
very  flat  plants,  smiling  wanly  up  from  the  desolate 
earth. 

Nielsen  and  I  made  known  to  Denton  our  purpose  to 

walk  across  the  valley.     He  advised  against  it.     Not 

that  the  heat  was  intense  at  this  season,  he  explained, 

but  there  were  other  dangers,  particularly  the  brittle 

salty  crust  of  the  sink-hole.     Nevertheless  we  were  not 

deterred  from  our  purpose. 
26 


390  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

So  with  plenty  of  water  in  canteens  and  a  few  biscuits 
in  our  pockets  we  set  out.  I  saw  the  heat  veils  rising 
from  the  valley  floor,  at  that  point  one  hundred  and 
seventy-eight  feet  below  sea  level.  The  heat  lifted  in 
veils,  like  thin  smoke.  Denton  had  told  us  that  in 
summer  the  heat  came  in  currents,  in  waves.  It  blasted 
leaves,  burned  trees  to  death  as  well  as  men.  Pros- 
pectors watched  for  the  leaden  haze  that  thickened  over 
the  mountains,  knowing  then  no  man  could  dare  the 
terrible  sun.  That  day  would  be  a  hazed  and  glaring 
hell,  leaden,  copper,  with  sun  blazing  a  sky  of  molten 
iron. 

A  long  sandy  slope  of  mesquite  extended  down  to  the 
bare  crinkly  floor  of  the  valley,  and  here  the  descent  to 
a  lower  level  was  scarcely  perceptible.  The  walking  was 
bad.  Little  mounds  in  the  salty  crust  made  it  hard  to 
place  a  foot  on  the  level.  This  crust  appeared  fairly 
strong.  But  when  it  rang  hollow  under  our  boots,  then 
I  stepped  very  cautiously.  The  color  was  a  dirty  gray 
and  yellow.  Far  ahead  I  could  see  a  dazzling  white 
plain  that  looked  like  frost  or  a  frozen  river.  The  at- 
mosphere was  deceptive,  making  this  plain  seem  far  away 
and  then  close  at  hand. 

The  excessively  difficult  walking  and  the  thickness  of 
the  air  tired  me,  so  I  plumped  myself  down  to  rest,  and 
used  my  note-book  as  a  means  to  conceal  from  the  tire- 
less Nielsen  that  I  was  fatigued.  Always  I  found  this  a 
very  efficient  excuse,  and  for  that  matter  it  was  profit- 
able for  me.  I  have  forgotten  more  than  I  have  ever 
written. 

Rather  overpowering,  indeed,  was  it  to  sit  on  the  floor 
of  Death  Valley,  miles  from  the  slopes  that  appeared  so 
far  away.  It  was  fiat,  salty,  alkali  or  borax  ground, 
crusted  and  cracked.  The  glare  hurt  my  eyes.  I  felt 
moist,  hot,  oppressed,  in  spite  of  a  rather  stiff  wind.     A 


DEATH  VALLEY  391 

dry  odor  pervaded  the  air,  slightly  like  salty  dust.  Thin 
dust  devils  whirled  on  the  bare  flats.  A  valley-Mdde 
mirage  shone  clear  as  a  mirror  along  the  desert  floor  to 
the  west,  strange,  deceiving,  a  thing  both  unreal  and 
beautiful.  The  Panamints  towered  a  wrinkled  red 
grisly  mass,  broken  by  rough  canyons,  with  long  declines 
of  talus  like  brown  glaciers.  Seamed  and  scarred! 
Indestructible  by  past  ages,  yet  surely  wearing  to  ruin ! 
From  this  point  I  could  not  see  the  snow  on  the  peaks. 
The  whole  mountain  range  seemed  an  immense  red 
barrier  of  beetling  rock.  The  Funeral  Range  was  farther 
away  and  therefore  more  impressive.  Its  effect  was 
stupendous.  Leagues  of  brown  chocolate  slopes,  scarred 
by  slashes  of  yellow  and  cream,  and  shadowed  black  by 
sailing  clouds,  led  up  to  the  magnificently  peaked  and 
jutted  summits. 

Splendid  as  this  was  and  reluctant  as  I  felt  to  leave  I 
soon  joined  Nielsen,  and  we  proceeded  onward.  At  last 
we  reached  the  white  winding  plain,  that  had  resembled 
a  frozen  river,  and  which  from  afar  had  looked  so  ghastly 
and  stark.  We  found  it  to  be  a  perfectly  smooth  stratum 
of  salt  glistening  as  if  powdered.  It  was  not  solid,  not 
stable.  At  pressure  of  a  boot  it  shook  like  jelly.  Under 
the  white  crust  lay  a  yellow  substance  that  was  wet. 
Here  appeared  an  obstacle  we  had  not  calculated  upon. 
Nielsen  ventured  out  on  it  and  his  feet  sank  in  several 
inches.  I  did  not  like  the  wave  of  the  crust.  It  re- 
sembled thin  ice  under  a  weight.  Presently  I  ventured 
to  take  a  few  steps,  and  did  not  sink  in  so  deeply  or  make 
such  depression  in  the  crust  as  Nielsen.  We  returned  to 
the  solid  edge  and  deliberated.  Nielsen  said  that  by 
stepping  quickly  we  could  cross  without  any  great  risk, 
though  it  appeared  reasonable  that  by  standing  still  a 
person  would  sink  into  the  substance. 

"Well,  Nielsen,  you  go  ahead,"  I  said,  with  an  attempt 


392  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

at  lightness.     "  You  weigh  one  hundred  and  ninety.     If 
you  go  through  I'll  turn  back!" 

Nielsen  started  with  a  laugh.  The  man  courted  peril. 
The  bright  face  of  danger  must  have  been  beautiful  and 
alluring  to  him.  I  started  after  him — caught  up  with 
him — and  stayed  beside  him.  I  could  not  have  walked 
behind  him  over  that  strip  of  treacherous  sink-hole.  If 
I  could  have  done  so  the  whole  adventure  would  have 
been  meaningless  to  me.  Nevertheless  I  was  frightened. 
I  felt  the  prickle  of  my  skin,  the  stiffening  of  my  hair,  as 
well  as  the  cold  tingling  thrills  along  my  veins. 

This  place  was  the  lowest  point  of  the  valley,  in  that 
particular  location,  and  must  have  been  upwards  of  two 
hundred  feet  below  sea  level.  The  lowest  spot,  called 
the  Sink  Hole,  lay  some  miles  distant,  and  was  the 
terminus  of  this  river  of  salty  white. 

We  crossed  it  in  safety.  On  the  other  side  extended  a 
long  flat  of  upheaved  crusts  of  salt  and  mud,  full  of  holes 
and  pitfalls,  an  exceedingly  toilsome  and  painful  place 
to  travel,  and  for  all  we  could  tell,  dangerous  too.  I  had 
all  I  could  do  to  watch  my  feet  and  find  surfaces  to  hold 
my  steps.  Eventually  we  crossed  this  broken  field, 
reaching  the  edge  of  the  gravel  slope,  where  we  were  very 
glad  indeed  to  rest. 

Denton  had  informed  us  that  the  distance  was  seven 
miles  across  the  valley  at  the  mouth  of  Furnace  Creek. 
I  had  thought  it  seemed  much  less  than  that.  But 
after  I  had  toiled  across  it  I  was  convinced  that  it  was 
much  more.  It  had  taken  us  hours.  How  the  time 
had  sped !  For  this  reason  we  did  not  tarry  long  on  that 
side. 

Facing  the  sun  we  found  the  return  trip  more  formid- 
able. Hot  indeed  it  was — hot  enough  for  me  to  imagine 
how  terrible  Death  Valley  would  be  in  July  or  August. 
On  all  sides  the  mountains  stood  up  dim  and  obscure  and 


DEATH  VALLEY  393 

distant  in  haze.  The  heat  veils  lifted  in  ripples,  and  any 
object  not  near  at  hand  seemed  illusive.  Nielsen  set  a 
pace  for  me  on  this  return  trip.  I  was  quicker  and  surer 
of  foot  than  he,  but  he  had  more  endurance.  I  lost 
strength  while  he  kept  his  unimpaired.  So  often  he  had 
to  wait  for  me.  Once  when  I  broke  through  the  crust 
he  happened  to  be  close  at  hand  and  quickly  hauled  me 
out.  I  got  one  foot  wet  with  some  acid  fluid.  We 
peered  down  into  the  murky  hole.  Nielsen  quoted  a 
prospector's  saying:  "Forty  feet  from  hell'*  That 
broken  sharp  crust  of  salt  afforded  the  meanest  traveling 
I  had  ever  experienced.  Slopes  of  weathered  rock  that 
slip  and  slide  are  bad ;  cacti,  and  especially  choya  cacti, 
are  worse:  the  jagged  and  corrugated  surfaces  of  lava 
are  still  more  hazardous  and  painful.  But  this  cracked 
floor  of  Death  Valley,  with  its  salt  crusts  standing<on  end, 
like  pickets  of  a  fence,  beat  any  place  for  hard  going  that 
either  Nielsen  or  I  ever  had  encountered.  I  ruined  my 
boots,  skinned  my  shins,  cut  my  hands.  How  those 
salt  cuts  stung!  We  crossed  the  upheaved  plain,  then 
the  strip  of  white,  and  reached  the  crinkly  floor  of  yellow 
salt.  The  last  hour  taxed  my  endurance  almost  to  the 
limit.  When  we  reached  the  edge  of  the  sand  and  the 
beginning  of  the  slope  I  was  hotter  and  thirstier  than  I 
had  ever  been  in  my  life.  It  pleased  me  to  see  Nielsen 
wringing  wet  and  panting.  He  drank  a  quart  of  water 
apparently  in  one  gulp.  And  it  was  significant  that  I 
took  the  longest  and  deepest  drink  of  water  that  I  had 
ever  had. 

We  reached  camp  at  the  end  of  this  still  hot  summer 
day.  Never  had  a  camp  seemed  so  welcome!  What  a 
wonderful  thing  it  was  to  earn  and  appreciate  and  realize 
rest!  The  cottonwood  leaves  were  rustling;  bees  were 
humming  in  the  tamarack  blossoms.  I  lay  in  the  shade, 
resting  my  burning  feet  and  aching  bones,  and  I  watched 


394  TALES  OF  LONELY  TRAILS 

Nielsen  as  he  whistled  over  the  camp  chores.  Then  I 
heard  the  sweet  song  of  a  meadow  lark,  and  after  that  the 
melodious  deep  note  of  a  swamp  blackbird.     These  birds  I 

evidently  were  traveling  north  and  had  tarried  at  the 
oasis. 

Lying  there  I  realized  that  I  had  come  to  love  the  si- 
lence, the  loneliness,  the  serenity,  even  the  tragedy  of 
this  valley  of  shadows.  Death  Valley  was  one  place 
that  could  never  be  popular  with  men.     It  had  been  set  | 

apart  for  the  hardy  diggers  for  earthen  treasure,  and  for 
the  wanderers  of  the  wastelands — men  who  go  forth  to  < 

seek  and  to  find  and  to  face  their  souls.  Perhaps  most 
of  them  found  death.  But  there  was  a  death  in  life. 
Desert  travelers  learned  the  secret  that  men  lived  too 
much  in  the  world — that  in  silence  and  loneliness  and 
desolation  there  was  something  infinite,  something  hidden 
from  the  crowd. 


The  End 


I 
I 


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